


into orbit

by watery_sun



Series: reclamation [2]
Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, Enthusiastic Consent, F/F, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Fluff without the impending threat of death, Healing, No Lesbians Die, POV Alternating, Porn with Feelings, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Therapy, Wilderness Survival, a bunch of interrelated oneshots, but soft, some of these are dark oops, that i write to procrastinate
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:48:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 49,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26551612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watery_sun/pseuds/watery_sun
Summary: Love is: trying, failing, and trying again. Truth, pain, and generosity. Trust, that will no longer be taken for granted. And bravery, in the wrappings of fear but with so much strength.Scenes before, during, and afterto call myself beloved.Find me ontumblr.
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Series: reclamation [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1894723
Comments: 113
Kudos: 193





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dina travels, JJ does his best velociraptor impression, and Ellie really, really takes it upon herself to make sure that JJ brushes his teeth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My life is stressful. I should have been working on Chapter 9 of [to call myself beloved](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25553626/chapters/62007166), but instead I wrote some self-indulgent fluff and smut without any real plan or outline in mind. Validate me.
> 
> This chapter is the first in a long series of oneshots that I have planned. I can't promise that this will regularly update until TCMB is finished, but I will do my best!

Ellie loved Dina - she really, truly, deeply did - but sometimes, _sometimes_ , Dina had trash opinions about movies. And Ellie took it upon herself to right those opinions. She took it as seriously as she took her marriage vows.

“Look, I’m just saying, Point Break is one of the greatest extreme-sports crime thrillers ever m-”

A thump, a huff, and crossed arms interrupted her.

“ _Excuse_ me? Sorry if I was unable to suspend my disbelief after learning that the main character’s name is Johnny _Utah_ -”

“Oh, come on-”

“Like, imagine if my name was Dina _Rhode Island_.”

A shrug. “I mean...I’d still _ride_ that-”

Now those hands were raised in utter exasperation. “Oh my _God_ , how-”

“Momma?”

Dina’s retort died in her throat.

There was a child-sized shadow in their doorway, peeking inside - darker than the blue-black of their room and backlit slightly by the nightlight down the hall. Immediately, all thoughts of defending Point Break from Dina’s treasonous criticisms left Ellie’s head. “You alright, buddy?”

Dina was on the same page, murmuring a “C’mere, bubba” as she leaned over to turn on her bedside lamp. Hair mussed, pajamas wrinkled, JJ scrambled onto the far corner of the bed and made the journey to settle between Dina and Ellie, slotting in between the two like a puzzle piece.

“Hey Spud- oh, thank you for that,” Ellie murmured, grinning as he decisively placed Ollie in her hands. “What’re you doing up?”

JJ gripped the comforter in his fists and peered up into Ellie’s eyes, gaze open and wondering. “Is Momma going on her trip tomorrow?”

“Yes, bubba, but it’s just for a week.”

JJ processed this, a small pout on his face. “What about our art project?”

Dina had been straightening out his pajama top, and brightened at his question. “We can finish it when I get back! Or maybe your Mummy can help you finish, hm?”

Unseen by JJ, Ellie’s arched one eyebrow in a silent _Really?_ , but Dina just shot her a smile.

“Maybe I’ll bring you back a present,” she continued, hunching forward to let her fingertips dance along JJ’s sides. He snorted and tried to push her hands away.

“A puppy, Momma! A puppy!”

Dina chuckled. “Not this time, love.” She ceased her tickling and wrapped JJ up in her arms, letting his solid warmth settle against her. “But maybe we can go visit Astrid’s new puppies in a few weeks.”

JJ seemed content to drop the subject, as he yawned hugely.

“You want a story, buddy?” Ellie asked, quickly running through her mental catalog of children’s books that they hadn’t yet exhausted. But JJ just shook his head tiredly, and Dina plucked Ollie from Ellie’s hands.

“Bedtime, hmm?”

“I guess so,” JJ murmured absently, and Dina smiled softly, sliding out from under the blankets and taking his hand in hers to lead him back to his room. Ellie listened to the soft sounds of their footsteps, the secret whispers that Dina and JJ shared with each other, and the soft _click_ of a light being turned off.

Dina eased their bedroom door closed as she returned, before padding across the floor back to bed.

“I’m terrible at embroidery, and you know it,” Ellie said, finally voicing her retort and crossing her arms as she surveyed Dina from across the room. “Even children’s embroidery.” 

“Yes, but _he_ doesn’t know that. Maybe I’ll come back and you’ll be an embroidery master,” Dina replied. She didn’t slide under the blankets to Ellie, but instead crawled towards her over the foot of the bed, until her thighs bracketed Ellie’s hips.

“Then I’ll _truly_ be unstoppable,” Ellie said, uncrossing her arms and letting her hands slide along Dina’s sides. “You all packed for tomorrow?”

“I finished packing yesterday,” Dina replied, voice low, tucking a stray strand of auburn hair behind Ellie’s ear.

“You want my silencer? It’s a real one, not a flimsy plastic thing.”

“Mmm…” Dina traced Ellie’s collarbone, her lips, a minute scar on her jaw. “Nah, you know me. I love going into a fresh checkpoint with my guns blazing.”

Mischief leached into her voice, and Ellie smiled knowingly. Her thumbs drew circles on Dina’s hips, and she leaned closer. “In that case, I’ll leave it in your bag tomorrow morning.”

Dina chuckled, and the sound reverberated right through Ellie’s chest. “So reliable,” Dina murmured, and she leaned in to press a kiss against Ellie’s exposed neck.

Ellie turned her head and their lips met for a soft, brief moment before Dina tilted her head and deepened the kiss. Ellie wound an arm around the small of her back, pulling Dina even closer to her, until there was no space between them. Dina gasped into her mouth, gripping the headboard for leverage and arching forward. She kissed a line down the column of Ellie’s neck, listening to her delicious gasps and groans and -

“Oh, fuck, you know what you need? That new molotov recipe that Astrid’s been working on, apparently absinthe -”

Dina jerked back until their noses were an inch apart, cradling Ellie’s face in her hands. “ _Baby_ ,” she said, exasperation cresting in her voice. “I am _trying_ to seduce you.”

Ellie cocked her head, one eyebrow arching upwards. Dina had taken her hands off of the headboard, leaving her with an opening.

And she took it, lurching forward and flipping them both over, so that Dina landed on her back with her head at the foot of the bed, hair mussed and breathing labored and eyes wide.

“ _Babe_ ,” Ellie responded, voice low, sliding between Dina’s legs and running her hands up to press her wrists above her head. She mouthed at Dina’s neck and spoke there, lips and teeth moving against delicate flesh, and Dina’s back arched involuntarily. “I am _trying_ to make sure you have a safe journey tomorrow.”

Then Ellie withdrew and propped herself up on her elbows, still hovering over Dina, with an expectant look on her face. Dina huffed.

“Fine,” she sighed dramatically, as she began - in an over-exaggeratedly laborious fashion - to tick off the weapons and supplies she’d be taking along.

As she went on, Ellie’s hands inched further and further under her nightshirt, baring her belly to the night air, and then her ribs, and then her breasts. Ellie dipped her head and let her breath ghost over Dina’s skin, pressing soft, chaste kisses here and there. 

Dina’s breath hitched and her voice cracked as those chaste kisses morphed into licks and open-mouthed bites, all the while keeping her wrists where Ellie had pressed them. 

By the time she finished her recitation, Dina’s chest was heaving, her clothes were thrown on the floor somewhere, and she was watching Ellie with eyes so wide and dark that they looked black instead of brown.

“Is that good enough for you?” she gasped, mouth curving into a dazed smile.

“Never will be,” Ellie muttered huskily, running her hands along Dina’s ribcage, her own breathing coming faster. “It won’t be good enough until you’re back in my arms.”

“I know,” Dina whispered placatingly, all traces of playfulness gone from her voice. She caught Ellie’s hands in hers and laced their fingers together. “I know.”

Ellie crawled back down the bed until she lay on her side, one arm going around Dina’s shoulders and the other trailing slowly up her inner thigh. Dina lurched for her mouth, arms winding around Ellie’s neck and upper back. 

“You’ll come back to me?” Ellie murmured against Dina’s lips, swallowing her gasp as she pressed her fingers between Dina’s legs. 

There was a frantic edge to Dina’s voice now, as she gasped out - “I’ll try.” She whimpered against Ellie’s neck as Ellie slipped her fingers inside of her and curled them. “I promise, baby, I’ll try…” She rocked with Ellie’s hand, voice catching as she tipped her head back, and Ellie covered her mouth with her own, swallowing down her desperate noises. It wasn’t long before Dina shuddered in her arms, gasping and crying out and gripping at Ellie’s shoulders desperately.

Dina came down slowly, sighing against Ellie’s mouth as her lover’s fingers still moved inside her, coaxing her through every soft aftershock before gently withdrawing. The cool night breeze washed over sweat-damp skin, and Ellie felt Dina’s hands absently tracing her back through her shirt.

Ellie’s mouth curved into a wicked smile.

“You know this means that you don’t get to complain next time we do inventory.”

With an exasperated, strangled noise, Dina smacked her on the arm, shifted her hips with surprising quickness, and rolled them over again - and she grinned down at Ellie, who held her hands in front of her in mock-defensiveness. “I’ll do what I want,” Dina murmured, her own wicked smile blooming across her face.

And she did, hips rolling as the rest of her body followed - twisting and gyrating, otherworldly in the dark. Ellie let her defenses fall and placed her hands on Dina’s hips reverently, where her thumbs resumed their circles. 

“Ellie Williams,” Dina murmured, pushing her thick, dark hair out of her face. “Do me a favor, hm?” 

“Anything,” Ellie whispered, all vestiges of humor thrown out the window. 

Dina slowed her movements and leaned forward onto her elbows, until her lips were inches from Ellie’s. With her pupils blown wide, hair mussed, and eyebrows raised, she breathed in deeply and intoned -

“Stop talking about supplies for one _fucking_ second and let me make love to you.”

And Dina smiled above her, naked and beautiful in the darkness, and for once in her life, Ellie shut up.

* * *

It wasn’t often that Dina woke first, but today was an exception.

She used to joke that she had an unflappable circadian rhythm. Maybe it was something leftover from her traveling with Talia, from the pernicious habit of always being ready to leave a place at the drop of a hat. As regularly as was possible when they were on-and-off, she would leave Jesse, usually a light sleeper, snoring soundly in his bed while she snuck out the back door. 

Things with Ellie were different. For a long, long time, Ellie regularly woke before Dina, sometimes hours before, and Dina would find her in her studio, or with JJ, or just sitting on the porch, watching the rest of the world wake up.

But for now, the curve of Ellie’s body was warm at her back, and Dina let herself listen to the steady rhythm of her breathing for a few more minutes. How much time, how much energy, how many years could go into the simple thing that was breathing easily in the night? 

Dina wanted to roll over and burrow into the dark heat of Ellie’s body for hours more, but she stopped herself before she could sink too deeply into that tempting thought. Very gently, she eased out from under the arm that Ellie had thrown over her and tip-toed to the bathroom.

Downstairs, a weak, watery light was starting to seep into the windows and Dina stretched, surveying her kitchen. The magnitude of what her day would contain loomed in front of her as she sifted her coffee grounds, marveling at what a miracle they could be: something not just normal and banal but only partially-liked, instead of clung to desperately in survival. What a luxury that was - what a blessing.

With the sound of dripping coffee behind her, Dina crept back upstairs, rifling through her most creative ways to wake Ellie on a morning like this - but she dropped the thought when she found the door to JJ’s room propped open.

Ellie was still silent when she wanted to be, and this morning was no exception. Dina leaned against the doorframe and watched them - Ellie, perched on one side of JJ’s bed, whispering to him and rubbing his back. His voice pitched as he threw her questions in the darkness, and her voice was low and steady as she answered them.

Finally, Ellie murmured an “Okay, Potato” and leaned over to turn on his bedside lamp. She came to Dina in the doorway, encircling her hip with one long arm.

“You sleep okay?” Dina murmured as they walked down the hallway to the staircase.

“Mhmm,” Ellie breathed, nuzzling the crown of Dina’s head.

She stepped out of Ellie’s arms on the ground floor and headed for a window that looked out over their porch, still washed out in the early morning light. The street and buildings beyond were colored in nothing but soft grays and blues, and Dina felt immensely spoiled that she could gaze upon the world from her house, and look for beauty instead of signs of impending threats. But now she was seeking the danger out instead of escaping it; she was creating the community rather than aimlessly searching for it. The path that her life had taken felt jarring.

“Dina? Yo, dude.”

Ellie’s voice seemed to come to her at the end of a long tunnel. 

“Earth to Dina. Breakfast?”

“Oh, jeeze, yes,” Dina replied, flustered, turning away from the window. “I was lost in thought.”

“Well get out of your head and lose yourself in one of my delicious omelettes,” Ellie shot back as she whisked eggs. 

It wasn’t long before JJ made his way downstairs, yawning and rubbing sleepily at his eyes. “Hey, Spud,” Dina murmured, holding out her arms - JJ went to her directly. “And how did you sleep?”

“I dreamed about...about dinosaurs again,” JJ said around a yawn, leaning against Dina for a moment before climbing into his own chair.

“Ooohhh.” Ellie’s voice elongated with interest from her place in front of the stove. “Which dinosaurs were in your dream, Potato?”

JJ scrunched up his brows, thinking hard.

“A stega...a stegosaurus!”

“That’s so cool, buddy,” Ellie said, while turning on her heel, skillet held aloft. JJ nodded vigorously as she ladled omelettes onto plates before turning back towards the coffee maker.

“They were wearing party hats and having a party!” JJ continued, and Dina chuckled. 

“When you’re a little older, I’ll take you to this museum that’s nearby,” Ellie said, placing a mug of coffee next to Dina’s plate as she sat down, and accepting her murmured “Thank you” with a soft smile. “There’s an entire stegosaurus skeleton in there!”

“I know about that place,” JJ said confidently, and Ellie’s eyebrows shot up. “Why can’t I go now? James said he went a couple weeks ago.”

Ellie shot Dina a surprised look, as if to say _What the fuck are James’s parents thinking?_ Dina just frowned and gave a minute shrug.

“Gotta teach you how to swim first, buddy,” said Ellie with finality, as she scooped another forkful of omelette into her mouth. “Eat your eggs, hm?”

Anxiety bubbled in Dina’s gut as she finished breakfast, but to Ellie’s immense credit, she set about straightening up the bits and bobs that subsequently became unraveled - tucking back the strands of dark hair that fell into Dina’s face, fixing her shirt that became untucked in the back (“I am _not_ copping a feel, babe, I promise”), washing used dishes that Dina forgot on the kitchen table as she tried to convince JJ to brush his teeth.

“I got it, love,” Ellie murmured, sidling into the bathroom and gently nudging her out. “Hey, buddy, wanna have a race to see who can brush their teeth the fastest?”

Dina swore that on some days, _I got it_ held just as much gravity and meaning as _I love you_.

And so Ellie ended up doing most of the work that morning; and inevitably, as the clock ticked down, Dina ended up in the living room, running her fingertips over their framed wedding photos.

Some were posed, or silly, or cheesy, or dramatic, but these were not her favorites. Her favorite was one that was blurred and soft, a candid that she hadn’t even known had been taken until Astrid showed it to her.

They were walking towards the camera, angling their bodies in towards each other. Dina’s head was tilted up and she leaned into Ellie fully, in a joyous, carefree way. Ellie had one arm securely around Dina’s waist and the other inches from her cheek, as if she were whispering to her, or about to kiss her. Soft smiles played across both their faces, and they were mid-step, giving the impression that they weren’t even on the ground. The fore and backgrounds were blurred, surrounding the two of them in amorphous, soft light.

A hand was suddenly on her shoulder, and then an arm was around her waist, and Dina closed her eyes and let herself be pulled backwards into solid warmth, as Ellie hugged her from behind. 

“I think we’ve avoided cavities for another day,” Ellie said, and Dina chuckled. Ellie held her closer. “You doin’ okay?” she murmured, breathing against Dina’s neck and pressing soft, tiny kisses there.

Dina inhaled deeply and wove her fingers through Ellie’s, swaying back and forth. Part of her wished she could float away, find some secret place for just herself and her lover, for all the rest of time -

And part of her heard JJ bounding down the stairs and remembered she was one person in a community of hundreds, and she had not just an obligation but a burning desire, deep in her bones, to help her people thrive.

She spun and encircled her arms around Ellie’s neck. “Yeah.”

“Momma! Can you help me with my jacket?!”

“We really should have found him something with buttons,” Dina murmured, and Ellie smiled and let her arms drop.

“Maybe he’ll become a prodigy because we made him wear jackets with zippers.”

“A prodigy at what, zipping stuff?”

“It’s zippers or puns at this point, babe.” 

Dina straightened out the collar of JJ’s jacket before lifting him up into her arms, something that clearly took him by surprise by the high-pitched laugh that issued from his mouth. Dina spun round easily and laughed with JJ, coming to a stop with both of their hair mussed and a wild smile across her face. “I’m gonna miss you so much.”

“I miss you already, Momma,” JJ said, in that jarringly poignant way that he sometimes spoke, and Dina could swear that there was an old soul in him somewhere.

“Be good for Mummy, alright?” Dina said, locking eyes with her son, and JJ nodded vigorously.

“Promise!”

“Promise,” Dina repeated softly in reply, setting him back on his feet gently. 

With efficiency, Dina slipped on her own jacket, patting her pockets for her knife and extra ammunition. She made to grab her pack before Ellie tutted at her and shouldered it herself, waving off Dina’s playful eyeroll.

And Dina tucked JJ’s hand into hers, and they were off.

The sunlight was still weak, creeping over the jagged horizon, and the sky was high and tight and overcast. Despite all his earlier energy, JJ was soon yawning hugely, prompting Ellie to scoop him up into her arms, where he swung his legs absently and rested his head against her shoulder.

Dina watched her - her beautiful wife, scarred and strong and soft, a mess of sweet contradictions - and her heart ached with love.

“You don’t have to carry all that,” she murmured, stepping close to rub Ellie’s arm through her jacket.

“I want to,” Ellie said softly in reply, a simple smile on her face, and Dina knew that there was no arguing with her.

Of course, they came upon the east gate faster than Dina would have liked, and she slowed, stopping fifty meters or so from where the rest of the patrol was congregating. 

“So,” Ellie said, as she switched JJ to one arm and dug through her pockets with the other. “JJ and I have a little surprise for you.”

Dina’s heart leapt. “Oh?”

With one hand, Ellie finally extracted what she had been looking for - something about the size of her hand, and absolutely covered in sparkling pinks and purples and blues. “We made you a card,” she murmured with a smile, holding it out to Dina.

Dina’s eyes stung as she took the card reverently, fingers playing over the texture of the glitter and the uneven ridges of glue beneath it. She opened it with care, to find _I love you Momma, be safe!_ written in JJ’s blocky letters.

“You went a little crazy with the glitter,” Dina said, giggling.

“We just couldn’t help ourselves! Also, I was picking glitter out of the rug for hours afterwards, so be nice.”

“Is that where my tweezers went?” Dina smiled and leaned up on her toes to peck Ellie’s lips. “I love it.”

JJ, still on Ellie’s hip, made a face as they pulled away from their kiss - “Eww” - and Dina giggled again, feeling like a teenager caught doing something she shouldn’t. 

“You kiss Momma a lot,” JJ muttered to Ellie in that deadpan, almost accusatory way that children sometimes observed things, as if they were the only rational ones.

“Only because I love your Momma so much,” Ellie replied simply, and Dina felt her eyes sting again as she watched Ellie tuck a lock of JJ’s hair behind his ear, before turning to regard her with a soft smile.

There was now a decent-sized crowd around them - more residents coming to see their friends and family members off - and Dina recognized Robin from his height before he and Susan had even spotted them. She leaned in close to JJ. “Do you want to go say hi to Grandmama and Grandpa?”

JJ nodded vigorously and squirmed in Ellie’s arms, rumpling her shirt and making her groan as she leaned over to put him down.

“I’m getting too old to do that,” Ellie murmured, straightening up and letting Dina’s pack fall at her feet, and Dina smiled and brushed at her shoulder.

“Or he’s just getting too big.”

JJ was off like a rocket, weaving through the crowd, his calls of “Grandmama!” still reaching Dina’s ears, and she couldn’t contain her grin as she watched Susan scoop JJ into her arms easily.

But they were now left alone for a few precious moments, and Dina stepped forward, her hands going to straighten the collar of Ellie’s shirt. “I’ll iron this for you when I get back,” she murmured absentmindedly, a second before Ellie framed Dina’s face in her hands and pulled her forward into a long, slow kiss.

The tenderness made Dina’s heart ache; made her rise up on her toes to press as much of her body as she could against Ellie, until there was almost no space between them; made her wind her arms around Ellie’s neck like that first kiss. Ellie responded, wrapping her arms around Dina’s waist and holding so tightly that Dina was almost lifted off of her feet. She felt gravity take her and smiled, giggling into Ellie’s mouth and pressing soft pecks there as her feet came back down to earth.

And then Susan was there, with JJ holding her hand and Robin standing behind her.

“Grandmama says she has more puzzles for me to do!” JJ said excitedly, dancing from foot to foot and practically buzzing at the prospect.

“You’ll have so much fun, my love,” Dina murmured. She knelt down to press a kiss to his hair - “I’ll see you so soon, I promise” - and JJ wound his arms around Dina’s neck and pulled her close, going uncharacteristically quiet.

Dina tried to wipe surreptitiously at her eyes as she pulled away, nodding her thanks to Susan as she and Robin drifted back towards the edge of the crowd, both hand-in-hand with JJ. And then Ellie was holding her again, and Dina buried her face against the crook of her neck.

“You’re gonna do so much good, baby,” Ellie murmured, her voice high, withdrawing slightly and tipping Dina’s face up so that their lips met again, warm and open-mouthed and almost desperate. Dina once again was caught up in the impossible task of memorizing Ellie - how tenderly she held her, how fully and completely she gave and gave and gave. 

“I love you so much,” Dina murmured as she pulled away, cupping Ellie’s damp cheek.

“I love you back,” came Ellie’s reply, whispered and soft as she gently brushed their noses together.

And then there was a high whistle, signalling that the party was about to set off - always too soon.

“There’s my cue,” Dina whispered, gathering herself, although all her world had narrowed down to Ellie’s piercing green eyes. She let Ellie pull her closer for another second, and Dina traced Ellie’s jaw and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. 

“Please be safe,” Ellie whispered, a message that was only meant for Dina - a request that carried with it the weight of so, so many years of survival.

“Dina!”

Ellie’s words were almost pleading, and it once again struck through Dina that it was never guaranteed that she would come back whole. But defiance hardened in her - perhaps unwarranted in their world, but still, perhaps the greatest testament to their love - that not even uncertainty could keep them from each other.

“I will.”

Dina pressed one more kiss to Ellie’s lips, and then her knuckles as she backed away, trying to hold on for as long as possible. With great reluctance, she finally let go.

* * *

The possibility was always there, she knew. Even as the world went on around them - even as she watched her son grow, and drew things, and made things - the possibility always lurked, waiting, inimical. In her more difficult moments, Ellie wondered if it was eternal, if she was doomed to always bear this, to always fight this.

It wasn’t pain or horror that could set it off now. Jackson was safe, and Ellie was more content than she’d been in years. No, it was the little sounds, the randomness in the noise of the universe - but in that randomness, sometimes something slotted perfectly into that part of her brain, that last keystone that made her body tight with _danger_ , made her look for exits that she already knew were there, made her time how quickly she could sprint up the stairs and get to the revolver that sat in her nightstand…

It didn’t seem fair, and it rankled Ellie. It made her feel like a failure, as a parent and a spouse, that the ghosts from her past could haunt her so easily.

So, so easily.

Outside, the truck that had backfired was now humming quietly; previously frustrated voices were now high and happy.

Ellie sat with her back pressed against the cabinet, breathing heavily, trying to calm her scrabbling hands as they searched a weapon that wasn’t necessary. She pressed a shaking hand to her chest and wondered - wondered how people could live in the same place and, yet, have such different relationships with the random little things in their world.

Her breathing slowed, and exhaustion washed over her, and she winced. She was slated for leatherwork rotation this afternoon, but she could already tell that she was too drained, and guilt flared in her at the thought. She hadn’t missed a day of her rotations in a while.

Still, she found the set of radios in her studio and tuned them to the frequency that Maria’s office was on. They crackled under her fingers, static cutting through the haze in her brain.

“Maria, it’s Ellie…”

God, she felt stupid.

“...I...I can’t make it for rotation today. I’m not feeling so good. I’m sorry.”

Shame welled in her, and she hurriedly added the “Over” before her pause could extend too far into awkwardness.

There was a crackling in response, more static, and Ellie felt a pit of guilt form in her stomach - she was so stupid, it was just leatherwork, she just had to buck up and do it -

“Of course, hon. Someone will fill in for you. Take it easy, alright? Over and out.”

Ellie let her head hang and took a deep breath.

No matter how many times it happened, the kindness - seemingly unearned and so easily given - was a surprise. And Ellie almost felt embarrassed at her anxiety - of _course_ she wouldn’t be forced to do anything she couldn’t.

Ellie still had a few hours until she had to go pick up JJ from preschool. She dragged herself upstairs and crawled into Dina’s side of the bed, curling under the blankets, letting her scent and warmth envelope her.

The next morning, she turned off the radio, opened the door of her studio, and found JJ right outside, backpack slung over his shoulder, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“Hi buddy,” she said, trying to inject brightness into her voice. “What’s up?”

“Are you going to your doctor, Mummy? Why?”

God, he was a quick study. 

“Uh, yeah, kiddo. Remember last time I went?”

JJ paused, thinking. “Because...because you had a bad dream about something that happened a while ago.”

“That’s right,” Ellie said, taking his hand and leading him downstairs. “And sometimes it helps to talk about it.”

“Like how I tell you about my dreams sometimes?”

“Kinda, Spud,” Ellie replied. “Or like that time Eric said something mean to you at daycare, and you told us how it made you feel bad.”

They landed on the ground floor and headed for the door, JJ nodding all the while. “So not just dreams?”

“Sometimes...sometimes scary things happen, and we think we can deal with them on our own, but we can’t. That’s why we help each other.”

“Like how you and Momma are a team!”

Ellie smiled. “Yeah, buddy.”

The air was crisp that morning, sneaking under Ellie’s collar, and she was thankful for the scarf that JJ was wearing. She hugged him close at the daycare center-cum-school, waved at Susan, and set off for her appointment.

“Sometimes…”

Her thoughts were a tangled ball of string in her head, and she tugged at one end uneasily.

“Sometimes I hate waiting for her. Waiting to see if she’ll come back. It makes me think of Seattle...of what I put her through.”

It was sometimes easy to wonder - how Dina could not just tolerate but actively love and care for her. It was easy to fall into that pit and truly believe that she could not scale the sides. She sometimes felt like she was back in the trapped part of Seattle, avoiding those trip wires, always vigilant, always fearful. 

“I think that’s why it got to me so easily.”

A nod, the scratch of a pen.

“And you and Dina have talked about this already, yes?”

“So many times,” Ellie murmured. “I sometimes worry that I’m annoying her, actually.”

“It takes as long as it takes. I think Dina understands that.”

“I know, and it’s hard to...trust that she understands. I guess I’m still waiting for her to...to be fed up with me. And I feel worse when these attacks are _still_ happening…”

“Still?”

“Sometimes I just feel...impatient. I do all the hard work and it’s still there, it still holds on, I still see them…what if she’s getting tired of me?”

“Have you talked to her about it?”

“A little bit…”

Silence.

“I mean, I could probably do more, instead of just...assuming that she’s gonna be fed up with it all.”

A smile.

“And, Ellie, even if you still see them, it doesn’t mean all the work you’ve done doesn’t mean anything.”

“Yeah…” 

“It’s a long process. That doesn’t mean you’ve failed if you have to come back and revisit things every now and then.”

Ellie bit her lip. There was something coalescing, something that she needed to name.

“I don’t want to...fight with myself anymore. I don’t want...to hate myself when this happens. Parts of it were my fault, but...it won’t do me any good to hold that over myself anymore. It won’t help me be better...or feel happier...”

It was strange, to think about how something so obviously good like taking care of herself - something that she so easily, tenderly did for her son and her wife - only came to her after hours and hours of circling and prying. Sometimes the tangled knot just fell apart at the slightest prodding, deceptively simple and fleeting.

The thought continued to consume her long after they were finished, as she held JJ’s hand and walked home.

“Was your appointment good, Mummy?”

“Yeah, Potato.” She ruffled his hair. “It was really good.”

They walked home, and the world went on around them.

* * *

If motherhood and marriage had prepared Dina for anything, the activities that took her outside of Jackson’s walls were perhaps most surprising. But whenever she left home with a party, she was inevitably buffeted by issues of prioritization, conflict resolution, and compromise, out here in the literal wild.

It wasn’t quite the same as convincing JJ that two bedtime stories would have to do instead of three, or debating with Ellie on the merits of insulating their attic - for one, lives were more immediately at stake, both of the party and of Jackson’s residents themselves - but Dina still considered both to be equally important in their own ways.

Of course, sometimes she just took a break, because she was exhausted - and watching chaos unfold was its own joyous thing.

She filled her lungs with crisp mountain air and leaned back against the tree, observing the chalet that rose up in front of her. It was built into a rocky, jagged mountainside, providing a high vantage point that was difficult to get to, but advantageous over the surrounding areas. Wherever they were was distant and cold and high - the ride up to had been chilled, with winter reaching down from the mountaintops even though it was still early autumn in the valleys. Their travel was like a time machine, going forward in the year the higher they climbed.

Dina loved it, being out here, far from Jackson. Discovering this new place, digging through it, making it habitable filled her with a victorious feeling - with satisfaction that in the face of whatever the world threw at them, they would claw their way back.

It made her think of her family, of some of the most resilient people she had ever known. She heard JJ’s voice in her head as she worked, always questioning and observing - “What’s that do, Momma? Why is that wire red? Can I help, Momma? Please?”

He was still too young to safely accompany her, but maybe he would join her one day, or even take her place. Or maybe he would do something entirely different, something she had never even imagined. The thought tugged at Dina’s heart with equal parts love and excitement. The future was thrilling, for once. 

But she tried to stay centered in the present, too. She loved her friends. She loved the ease with which they joked and laughed and reined each other in, the gradient that they ran from uncaring and brash to just serious enough to keep everyone in check. 

A volley of _Clear!_ ’s rang out around them, and her party melted back into view, from behind walls and trees and out of alcoves and staircases.

“We got power anywhere?” Trent called out, holstering his pistol.

“Looks like someone already tried,” Dina said, pointing at the solar panels on the roof, some cracked and hanging from wires. “What’s the inside look like?”

“Spores in the basement, but we cleared out any infected. We’ll have to completely tear out the walls if we want to make sure it’s all cleared out.”

“Is it worth it?”

Trent shrugged. “Depends.”

Dina bit her lip. “We have the generator. I think I can wire some of these solar panels back to some kind of functional state - wouldn’t have to worry about gas so much, yeah?”

Part of Dina was ambitious, perhaps overly so - her party knew that she would throw anything into this to get it to stand, that she would not let it be left behind. Dina knew that this would probably get her into trouble one day. But thankfully, as the day wore on into evening, they succeeded in both fixing the generator and assessing a significant fraction of the intact solar panels.

Finally, they barricaded the basement, the exits, and the windows, and settled in for the night.

Dina watched the sun set beyond the darkened ridge line, spilling reds and purples out into the valley below. Astrid was settled beside her, black hair pulled into a knot on top of her head, dirt dusting her face. She pinched a piece of paper between her fingers, reading.

“From my brother,” she said when she saw Dina looking. She held out a polaroid between two fingers and Dina studied it - someone she clearly recognized as Astrid, with her arms around a man with hair the same color as hers and the same olive skin, but taller, crouching to hug her as he smiled at the camera.

Astrid sighed and brandished the letter.

“I swear, it’s like he thinks we’re going off to war or something.” 

“You don’t like it?”

“Oh I like it, I just...I dunno, dude. Is it really that important, what we’re doing?”

“Of course it is.”

Astrid tapped her knee with her free hand. “Sometimes it feels like nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, it’s like…” Dina sighed and shrugged, studying the mountains and trees that cut a horizon through the still-darkening sky. “Everyday we change the world.”

“And that’s a nice thought,” Astrid added, pithy. “But imagine how many buildings we’d have to clear out before it made a difference to anyone.”

“It makes a difference to us, though.”

“Yeah, I know. I just meant...the rest of the world.” Astrid waved a free hand absently.

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” Dina said simply. “It’s slow, exhausting. That’s the process.”

“The process,” Astrid repeated back at her. She let her head fall back against the window she sat against, stretched out and casual, and Dina let the thread of conversation drop.

“Your girl give you anything before we left?”

“Oh, she usually tries to slip something in every now and then,” Dina said, a grin blooming on her face. 

Hours ago, Dina had patted down her jacket pocket and found a folded square of paper that she had definitely _not_ placed there. And now happiness arced through her as she unfolded it and flattened it out in the light of her lamp, to see Ellie’s handwriting.

_How lucky am I_

_That you should fly out into the world_

_Fiery and brilliant and beautiful_

_And sow those bloody fields with such kindness_

_And still come back to me?_

_How blessed am I_

_That I see your eyes in our son_

_Your brightness, your laughter_

_And energy, never ceasing_

_Perpetually loving_

_How loved am I_

_That even when you are gone_

_Everything around me radiates your light_

_I wake in it, I sleep in it_

_And know that I will see you again_

Dina tucked it into the inside pocket of her jacket and resumed cleaning her pistol. The sky darkened, Astrid snoozed beside her, and the world spun into another night.

* * *

The day that they were slated to return dawned clear and bright, and Ellie rolled over to shield her eyes from the sun, grasping onto the last dredges of sleep until the pitter patter of bare feet reached her ears.

The entire mattress dipped and shifted and Ellie grumbled, cracking open one eye. There was JJ, on his side next to her, all but buzzing with energy.

“Does Momma come back today?”

He really _was_ a quick study.

“Yeah, Spud,” she mumbled, and JJ squealed and jumped off of the bed with a bounce that rattled Ellie down to her bones. “Oof, okay, okay…”

He was so bright, practically a hurricane in his energy, and Ellie wanted nothing more than to protect him.

They had talked for long hours about whether or not they should bring JJ when Dina came back. At his age, perhaps not, Ellie had argued - he didn’t need such a detailed view of how dark the world could be.

But, Dina countered, wouldn’t it do some good, for him to see what work and community could do?

Ellie fell silent at that, and then finally voiced the thought that she had tried to bury - _What if you don’t come back?_

And Dina pondered that, stepping close to Ellie and placing a hand on her cheek - _Our love is forever, even when we’re gone._

Ellie’s head swirled with these thoughts, and she could hardly focus on her rotations - lifting her eyes to the mountains that surrounded Jackson, again and again, as if she would be able to see Dina from here.

The evening came both too slowly and too soon, and Ellie felt almost too vigilant, too observant - of the coolness of the weather, and was it too cold? If they were coming down from elevation, could they do so safely? She wondered about the weather over the past few days, and kicked herself for not monitoring it more closely, because if she didn’t observe it, and make sure it was safe, then surely something terrible would happen to Dina, or to one of her friends, or to Jackson...

_Stop_ ... _stop…_

God, what had she messed up now, of _course_ this would happen...

_It’s okay_ . _It’s okay._

Her breath left her body shakily, and she felt heavier, but grounded - a little more solid, a little more unwavering.

Ellie stood alone with the gate in the distance, rocking back and forth, playing with the bracelet that sat on her right wrist. She’d had half a mind to make Dina take it, but Dina had outright refused. “It’s yours,” she murmured as they lay together that last night, naked and breathing hard, and Dina tucked a blanket around them. “Just like I’m yours and you’re mine.”

Happy yells and cries of reunion went up around Ellie, and she bit her lip, trying to wrangle some semblance of patience into her chest.

And there she was, and Ellie had to look twice to make sure she wasn’t pulling something out of nothing, but she was right: Dina, dirt smudged on one cheek and a scratch on her forehead, smiling hugely in greeting at other residents. Running when she saw Ellie.

And Ellie ran to meet her - she needed to hold her, to feel that she was real and true and here, alive in the face of the uncertainty of their world.

And their bodies finally met and all that uncertainty was nothing, nothing, and Ellie crushed Dina to her, practically lifting her off of her feet. Dina whimpered, dropping her pack to the ground and hugging back just as fiercely. They swayed like that together for several long moments, and Ellie drank in the warm solidness of Dina’s body, the easy rhythm of her heartbeat.

“Are you clean?” Ellie whispered, so quietly, barely a breath, as she pulled back slightly. Dina’s “Yes” was heavy with emotion, and she immediately leaned up to slant her mouth over Ellie’s.

It was a conversation they’d had before, in hushed tones, where a reluctant consensus was reached: if Dina were ever to be infected, it would be Ellie who would help her over to the other side, as gently as possible.

But for now, Ellie enfolded Dina in her arms and poured every ounce of love into her that she could, and drew a deep, relieved breath as they separated.

“I got your letter,” Dina gasped as she pulled back slightly, stabilizing over her toes on the ground. “How do you _keep_ doing that?”

“Secrets,” Ellie replied, grinning and catching her own breath. She stooped and shouldered Dina’s pack, but Dina’s hand was in hers, tugging - “We’re debriefing first, babe.” 

They crowded into a small house, abandoned but for meetings such as this. Ellie frowned at the density of people present, but settled behind Dina, placing her hands on Dina’s shoulders and rubbing circles there with her thumbs. Maria was going on about something, like the potential to open up trade routes with surrounding towns, but Ellie was solidly distracted by the warmth under her hands - especially when Dina shifted and leaned further back into her.

Ellie leaned in close, so that her mouth was right next to Dina’s ear, and whispered:

“If she says ‘potential’ one more time, I swear…”

Dina sucked in a breath and inclined her head so her lips brushed Ellie’s cheek, replying teasingly - “Patience is a virtue, _yakirati_ ” - before directing her attention back to Maria.

Soon enough, they were back outside. The chill breeze that Ellie had felt that week, so foreboding, was now at their backs - almost frisky, as if urging them home. Ellie took a deep breath and felt the dregs of her anxiety disappear. Whatever playfulness Dina had been restraining inside was now on full display.

“Couple more safehouses with power, baby,” Dina said in a sing-song voice, gently hip-checking Ellie and raising her eyebrows. 

“Do any have secret weed dens? Or maybe a couch we can break in?”

Dina smacked her arm solidly with a gloved hand and rolled her eyes. “No weed den that we could find, but maybe if you come out of retirement, we can make a little den of our own up there.”

“Hey, I am not _retired_ ,” Ellie replied with a chuckle. “I am ‘fleshing out my other interests and creating space for my family’.” She bracketed her statement with air-quotes.

“Ooo, talk therapy to me baby, it makes me so wet,” Dina murmured through her smile, as she wove her fingers through Ellie’s and squeezed. 

Ellie rolled her eyes and whispered “You wish.”

“So are my embroidery hoops still intact?”

Ellie froze for a microsecond before continuing on. “Okay, so...we had to sacrifice one, but it was for a good cause.”

Dina’s eyebrows shot up, but her lips still curled into a smile. “You sat on it, didn’t you.”

Ellie waffled, raising her hands in front of her. “I’ll get another one the next time that trader’s in town. I’ll make it up to you.”

Dina inclined her head and pursed her lips. “I’m listening...”

And Dina let Ellie ply her all the way to Susan and Robin’s house, one arm wrapped solidly around her waist as Ellie whispered in her ear and prodded at her sides, eliciting gasps and giggles and the occasional roll of her eyes. Dina finally squirmed out of her grasp as their destination came into view, gasping “That’s the _last_ time I go out of town for a week, you dirty, insatiable - ” while Ellie sniggered.

They were barely through the door when a yell of “Momma!” went up, and JJ sprinted from the kitchen table and into Dina’s arms. Ellie rubbed the back of her neck and grinned bashfully at Robin, who was wiping his hands with a towel, while Dina spun in a circle with JJ in her arms, raining kisses down on the top of his head.

Robin chuckled and beckoned them closer. “Come see what we’ve been working on all afternoon.” 

“Is that a dinosaur puzzle?” Ellie gasped.

“One thousand pieces and no less!”

“Dinosaur puzzle!” JJ repeated, worming his way out of Dina’s grasp. His head barely made it to the top of the table, and he had to scramble bodily into a chair to survey his work. The edges of the puzzle were mostly complete, cutting a large rectangle across a third of the table, while numerous pieces and partially complete chunks lay scattered around.

They managed to remove the semi-completed puzzle from the table without any mishaps, despite the distraction of JJ and Ellie doing their best Tyrannosaurus rex impressions halfway through. They were finally willing to drop the act when Susan asked for help with setting the table - food was slightly higher on their list of priorities than dinosaur impressions.

“I had him help a little bit, but only by stirring the batter for the biscuits,” Susan said around a smile, as JJ removed the salad tongs from the salad and made to poke Robin with them.

“ _Someone_ in this family has to learn how to cook,” Dina said with a smile, and Ellie raised her eyebrows.

“ _Ouch_ , babe, that’s some low-hanging fruit.” 

Around the clatter of cutlery and praise for the food, Susan and Robin prodded Dina for updates from her week. She prodded right back back for town gossip that she had missed, while Ellie leaned over and cut up JJ’s chicken for him. By the time dessert was being ladled out, Ellie’s left hand was settled on Dina’s thigh under the table; she drummed her fingers there until Dina’s hand joined hers, caressing the ring on her middle finger.

They stayed there, fingers intertwined, until JJ yawned hugely, propping himself up on his elbow while his eyelids drooped, and Ellie noticed that the sky around them had faded to a deep, velvet black.

“I think that’s our cue,” she stage-whispered to the table at large.

Susan pressed a tupperware of leftovers into Dina’s hands as she hugged her - “So glad you’re back, hon” - and Robin ruffled JJ’s hair from where he leaned against Ellie’s shoulder - “If you two ever need a little break, you know he’s always welcome here.”

“Thanks, Robin. We’ll take our chances for now.”

Despite all his tiredness, JJ perked up again as they mounted the steps to their porch, and was soon running up the stairs, as Ellie rolled her shoulders around. “ _Where_ does he get all that energy,” she murmured flatly, as Dina chuckled. “You want tea, love?”

JJ soon found his way back downstairs, pajamas on - far too soon to have adequately brushed his teeth, but Ellie decided to let that slide when he met her in the kitchen, smiling widely.

“I wanna read with Momma.” But he tugged at Ellie’s sleeve, and clearly “read with Momma” included all three of them.

So Ellie curled behind Dina, an arm behind her on the couch, and JJ sat on her other side while she flipped through some of his favorite books. Ellie only left to grab their tea, letting herself be pulled in by Dina’s storytelling. JJ was rapt as she departed from the text to go on creative tangents, spinning worlds that didn’t exist into vivid, stunning imagery. How tempting it was, to fall into that space of simple morals and happy endings.

Of course, JJ soon fell asleep, curled in Dina’s lap with his head pillowed on her chest. Ellie watched Dina wind her arms around his small form.

“My storytelling must be really boring,” Dina quipped in a whisper, and Ellie just smiled softly.

“Nah, you’re riveting. Here, you’ve done enough heavy lifting today.” Ellie bent down to scoop JJ up in her arms, and Dina pressed a kiss to his hair before Ellie could lift him.

They padded back upstairs, Dina turning off lights as they went, letting the soft, blue-black of the night drift up behind them.

In his room, Ellie smoothed JJ’s blankets around him, probably taking more time than was warranted, but wanting to memorialize this image of her son in her head forever - relaxed, safe, happy. It was the only way she wanted to imagine him, for the rest of his life, despite all the evidence to the contrary that she both knew and had lived through.

She tried to think of the present, of the gift that was the here and now, and some of her anxiety waned as she closed the door quietly.

And then Dina pulled her down the hallway.

The energy about them was altered from the second they closed their bedroom door, high and tight and crackling, even though the kiss that Dina pressed to Ellie’s lips was slow and deep and lazy.

“Fuck, I missed you,” Ellie murmured as she pulled away, dazed, catching her breath, but holding Dina all the closer, eliciting a whimper in response. Dina seemed torn between grinding against Ellie and pulling her down for another kiss, so Ellie chose for her, leaning down to nibble at a patch of skin below her ear. Dina inhaled sharply and fisted her hands in Ellie’s shirt.

“Shower?” Dina gasped, as Ellie continued to kiss down her neck. She devolved into chuckles. “I’m still _gross_ , babe.” There was a “dirty” pun there, but Ellie batted it away, gripping Dina’s hips and walking backwards to their en suite bathroom.

“We could _start_ there,” Ellie murmured, eyes dark and twinkling, and Dina grinned and walked on her tiptoes so she could continue to press kisses to Ellie’s mouth. 

“Deal.”

They dropped their clothes behind them like breadcrumbs, and in minutes their world was all but transformed, foggy and warm and slippery, with all external noise and threats muffled and gone. Dina’s cries echoed eerily off the walls and ceiling, distorted and transposed as she arched against Ellie’s hand and clung to her slick skin.

She came down from her first high shakily, gasping for air and swaying. Ellie caught her before she could fall, muttering “Bed” decisively. Dina just nodded, and she seemed to regain her energy - by the time they tumbled back into their bed, she was pressing Ellie down beneath her and touching every slick, warm part of her that she could reach. Her skin burned under Ellie’s fingers, fire made solid.

Their lovemaking was a celebration, a victory lap for their survival - an insistent, beautiful thing in the face of the cruel world they lived in. Ellie brought out some of her worst puns because of how it made Dina laugh, sometimes until tears came to her eyes and she cursed both the puns and Ellie’s ministrations -

“You’re the absolute - oh, _fuck_ \- the _absolute_ worst, Ellie Williams.”

“You love me. And I’m _not_ that bad at this, you have to admit.” 

“You’re absolutely _fucking_ right, oh God, right there -”

As the night wore on, some of the revelry faded away, exposing something deeper, more serious, more desperate. Ellie put her mouth against Dina’s skin and swallowed her sounds and touched her with so much reverence, and their bodies thrummed as they took each other to their gasping highs, _closer, deeper, always..._

At some point, Ellie looked up from between Dina’s thighs, savoring her taste on her tongue, and with a jolt saw tear tracks across Dina’s cheeks, as her chest rose and fell and she laced her fingers through Ellie’s and begged - 

“ _Stay._ ”

And what else could Ellie do but whisper those promises against Dina’s skin and into her mouth as she entered her again, setting a relentless pace as Dina gripped the sheets and sobbed. She clung to Ellie as if she were lost in a storm, and Ellie wanted to reach inside her, to fill her with so much love and truth that she would never again doubt, or fear, or worry. She would give Dina everything she wanted, she would bend space and time if it meant that they would weather this together, that they would never be lost again -

Dina gasped and grabbed for something to hold onto, and Ellie lurched to meet her, cradling her shoulders in her free arm and letting Dina sink her hands into her hair.

“Please Ellie, please oh God _please_ -”

“I know, I know...I’m here, I promise...”

Dina’s body seized and shook, and Ellie covered her mouth with her own, swallowing every cry of her name.

The wave of Dina’s orgasm was both very fast - cresting with desperation, with Dina’s nails in Ellie’s back, with her head thrown back and her long dark curls spread everywhere - and very slow, as the tension went out of her body and her toes uncurled, and she took Ellie’s face in her hands so that their eyes met, whimpering as Ellie coaxed every soft aftershock out of her.

“Ellie...baby…” Dina gasped, breathless, body still humming but voice quiet as she slowly came down.

Ellie smiled softly. “I love you,” she murmured, leaning forward to press a chaste kiss to Dina’s mouth as her fingers stilled. She lingered there, and Dina kissed her back, humming lazily.

“I love you back,” Dina murmured as Ellie withdrew from her body, and she relaxed, her hair spread behind her in waves.

Ellie took a minute, breathing hard against Dina’s neck. “Water,” she muttered, squeezing Dina’s thigh before standing. As she refilled a glass in their bathroom, she watched Dina’s chest rise and fall, slowing down.

Dina finally opened her watering eyes and pushed herself shakily into a sitting position, leaning against the headboard, as one of Ellie’s arms went around her waist. “Hi,” she breathed.

“Hey, you,” Ellie murmured, as she tucked one damp lock of dark hair behind Dina’s ear. Dina reached for the glass and took a sip, and then passed it to Ellie, who let the coolness cut through her and bring her back down to earth. Ellie set it down on her nightstand, and curled her arm around Dina’s shoulders.

“You okay?”

Dina seemed to think for a moment as she tucked herself closer to Ellie, shifting down so that her head was pillowed by her arm. Ellie shifted down with her, letting a hand rest on her stomach.

Ellie watched Dina’s wide, dark eyes as Dina’s left hand met hers, and Ellie played with the wedding band there, watching it glint in the moonlight.

“I just missed you,” Dina whispered, nuzzling against Ellie’s neck. 

“I missed you too,” Ellie murmured back. Dina withdrew slightly, and Ellie brushed their noses together, before switching to running her thumb over Dina’s knuckles. “You still sure you’re okay with this?”

“With…?”

Ellie shrugged. “You going out, me staying in,” she explained simply.

Dina paused, catching Ellie’s fingers in her own. Everything was fuzzy and hazy, aloft on some endlessly soft current, and Ellie nuzzled the top of Dina’s head while she waited for her response.

“I missed you and JJ…and I also enjoyed it. I _wanted_ to go. I think both things can be true.”

“Mmm.” Ellie hummed and inhaled against the crown of Dina’s head, drinking in her scent. Dina rolled over, taking them both down so that they lay on their sides, Ellie curled behind Dina.

Ellie pulled a blanket over them both. “Tomorrow,” she murmured tiredly against the skin of Dina’s neck. “How about breakfast in bed, and what else? Whatever you want, love.”

Dina settled back against her, yawning. “JJ wants to go apple picking,” she murmured, voice heavy with sleepiness.

“Just as long as I don’t end up with chunks of rotten apple all over me again.”

“He gets that from you, you know,” Dina slurred, now even closer to sleep.

“Hey now, that’s not fair, I -” 

But Dina was already fast asleep. Ellie smiled and let the thread of conversation drop, going to join her. They could debate this tomorrow - for now, she let herself be borne aloft into unconsciousness, in so much love and warmth.

* * *

Dina rarely let herself sleep in, but today was an exception.

She drifted back to wakefulness slowly, aware of the heaviness of her body against the mattress, and the pleasant ache between her legs, and how softly the bed seemed to cradle her. She had somehow put some clothes on at some point in the night, including a flannel that had to be Ellie’s, just by how it smelled and settled around her in so much softness. God, she could stay here forever -

“Momma momma momma!”

But more important things were calling her name.

As if he had sensed that she was awake, JJ padded into the room on bare feet, hair mussed and face bright with a smile. Dina became vaguely aware of music coming from downstairs before he launched himself onto the bed with as much energy as he could, rocking the mattress as Dina gasped in equal parts worry and laughter.

“Hon, please, it is _too_ early for that kind of roughhousing -” but whether or not JJ heard her was lost on her, since he immediately curled up next to her, as close as he could get, eyes big and round and twinkling mischievously.

Dina knew what that meant, and she knew she had to head it off.

“Now, JJ-”

But he was already on her, yelling “Tickle fight!” before she could retort. He was surprisingly dextrous, darting under her attempts to stop him and going for her ribs and armpits. Dina shrieked, trying to gently bat him away.

And then Ellie was there - “Alright, you monster, get off of her” - wrapping her arms around JJ’s waist and lifting him off of the giggling Dina. He wriggled against her grip as she set him down, still taut and buzzing with energy, and Ellie - probably sensing impending disaster - set her hands on his shoulders and kneeled down so they were eye-level with each other.

“If I give you a blueberry, will you sit down next to your Momma and _not_ tickle her within an inch of her life?”

JJ genuinely seemed to consider that for a second before responding brightly - “Okay!” 

He took Ellie’s offered blueberry, popped it into his mouth, and crawled up on Dina’s other side to lean against her shoulder.

Ellie stood and rubbed the back of her neck and, God, the love that Dina felt for her - for her tangled, mussed hair and her easy, crooked smile and her calm, solid presence. It made Dina smile easily, propping her chin up on a fist, coy and prying.

“Whatever happened to breakfast in bed?”

“Okay, I can explain,” Ellie replied, holding up her hands, and Dina quirked an eyebrow. “I was making blueberry pancakes-”

“Your favorite, Momma!”

“Yeah, your favorite,” Ellie smiled. “And-”

“And you mixed up the salt and sugar, didn’t you.”

“Actually, _this_ time, I may have accidentally dumped too much baking powder into the bowl, and I figured you weren’t in the mood for actual blueberry _cakes_ , but I saved the batter, so- Hey, stop laughing!”

But Dina was already sniggering behind her palm. “Talia did that once,” she said between giggles. “They were _literally_ cakes, I don’t know why it made me laugh so hard but it _did_ -” She cut herself off, still giggling.

“So I was thinking we could go out for breakfast? Or - whatever it’s called...brunch?” Ellie replied, clearly trying to steer the conversation back to a more productive direction.

“Of course, love,” Dina replied, taking a deep breath and trying to shake off the rest of her laughter. She reached over to smooth the sleeve of Ellie’s shirt, as if that would do anything to remove the wrinkles there.

Meanwhile, JJ had left Dina’s side and was now stalking towards Ellie on his toes, as if she wouldn’t be able to see his bright red sleeping shirt - and Ellie just cocked an eyebrow.

“What kinda dinosaur are we today?”

JJ swayed from foot to foot, thinking, then - “A velociraptor!” He curled his small hands into claws, brows knitting together as a predatory growl - as predatory as a five-year old could be - issued from his mouth. 

Dina pretended to swoon from her prone position in bed. “How horrifying!”

Ellie mimicked him, hunching over, her own growl hitting a deeper register than her son’s. “All good velociraptors have to brush their teeth!” Absurd biological fictions aside, JJ followed her suggestion and sprinted to the bathroom. 

Ellie flopped ungracefully onto the bed, reaching across Dina for the bowl of blueberries she had set on the bedside table. Dina stretched, joints cracking. 

“Ooof, I’m gonna be feeling this trip for a while.”

“You’re telling me that the patented Ellie Williams cure of four orgasms didn’t treat every single ailment in your body?”

Dina snorted. “I think you broke me, babe.”

“Good,” Ellie said, popping a blueberry into her mouth.

They lapsed into silence, until the fog of the past several hours cleared, and Dina remembered: “I got something for you,” she said, a smile curling across her face. “I would have given it to you yesterday, but I was otherwise _indisposed_...”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Ellie replied around her own smile, and Dina extracted herself from the blankets, took Ellie’s hand, and led her downstairs.

Her pack was still in the kitchen where she had left it, and Dina dug through it carefully before watching Ellie’s eyes light up as she extracted the 7-inch vinyl record, so carefully, from its jacket.

“ _Where_ did you get that?” Ellie asked reverently, as Dina spun it expertly between her hands. Dina just smiled.

“We found it in the safehouse. Someone must have brought it in and left it there,” she shrugged, sending a flirtatious glance back at Ellie as she settled the record onto their player.

“ _How_ did you get this back to Jackson?”

“ _Very_ carefully,” Dina replied, grinning. “Don’t thank me, thank the person who was carrying it before. It seemed pretty well-cared-for.” She placed the needle carefully, exhaling hugely as actual music started to issue from the machine.

Slow, mellow sounds filled their living room and Dina turned to find Ellie with her arms already held open. “Imagine if that hadn’t worked,” Dina chuckled as she stepped into them, winding her arms around Ellie’s neck and leading them out into the center of the living room. They swayed back and forth, as a smooth, crooning voice came on over the track -

_Lay, lady, lay_

_Lay across my big brass bed_

Dina tucked her head into the curve of Ellie’s neck. She smiled when she felt Ellie’s arms tighten around her waist, felt her press a kiss to the crown of her head -

_Lay, lady, lay_

_Lay across my big brass bed_

They continued to sway like that, aimlessly traveling across the living room, going wherever their bodies took them, lost in their own swaying, soft orbit.

At some point, Ellie bent to speak into Dina’s ear.

“Can I tell you something?”

Dina pulled back slightly. “Always.”

Ellie looked down, biting her lip, as if she didn’t want to pop the bubble of their perfect moment.

“I had a panic attack while you were gone. I...it was hard.”

Dina nodded, cupping Ellie’s cheek with a hand, and anxiety curled in her stomach - _Oh God, why did I go, I’m so stupid -_

Ellie inhaled deeply. “But it wasn’t as bad as it’s been. I talked to my therapist about it, and it was...it was okay. It really was.”

_Why wait any longer for the world to begin?_

_You can have your cake and eat it too_

Dina’s anxiety left her, and she felt deflated in the best way. “That’s wonderful, baby,” she murmured, brushing a strand of hair behind Ellie’s ear. “I’m so proud of you. Do you want to talk about it later?” And Ellie nodded as her face opened in relaxed happiness, as if she had shrugged off something that had burdened her for a long time.

Dina pressed a kiss to Ellie’s forehead, pulling back when she head JJ’s irreverent footfalls coming down the stairs. The track finished and turned over - same mellow music, same crooning voice, and Dina found she didn’t want to stop. She extracted herself from Ellie’s arms and beckoned JJ closer.

“Are we having a party because Momma’s back?”

“Every day is a party when your Momma’s here,” Ellie said, smiling, and Dina’s heart swelled as she scooped JJ into her arms.

“Oof, you _are_ getting heavy,” she murmured as she continued to sway back and forth. JJ just wound his arms around Dina’s neck.

“I love you, Momma.”

“I love you too, Spud.” 

And Dina held out a hand to Ellie, in a question that she knew would always be answered. Ellie wound one arm around Dina’s waist, the other going to support her in holding JJ. And they swayed like that - for minutes or for hours, Dina didn’t know. 

For all she knew, the whole world was in her arms, and every second was forever, and there was no place she would rather be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, references abound:
> 
> The conversation between Dina and Astrid heavily references dialogue from Season 1, Episode 5 of [Mr. Robot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Robot).
> 
> “Just like I’m yours and you’re mine” is lifted from paxbanana's excellent [Valley of the Shadow of Death](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16056701/chapters/37487207), which I have [referenced before](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25553626/chapters/63188944#workskin). 
> 
> If the internet is to be trusted and I am not completely incompetent, _yakirati_ is Hebrew for _my darling_.
> 
> Finally, the song at the end of the fic is [Lay Lady Lay](https://genius.com/Bob-dylan-lay-lady-lay-lyrics) by Bob Dylan.
> 
> As always, let me know what you think, friends.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life after trauma, in its many forms, requires adaptation. Ellie and Dina figure each other out all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I have an outline for the next chapter of my multi-chapter fic written, but I also got this idea in my head a couple of days ago and couldn’t NOT write it. This is just good old NSFW smut with some feelings thrown in there. Validate me? 
> 
> **Content warnings** : There are two sections here, so by section we have:  
> I. Discussion of physical and psychological effects of childbirth; (non-penetrative) sex after childbirth  
> II. Panic attacks / flashbacks, sexual dysfunction, vaginal fingering
> 
> If folks want additional things tagged, please let me know.

**I.**

What was it, to shape old confidences onto a new, unfamiliar terrain? 

Dina pondered this as she watched JJ palm a block, drop it, and try again, gurgling and cooing all the while. He could be so intense sometimes, so driven in whatever his ambition was. Dina supposed he got that from her and Jesse in equal parts.

JJ dropped the block again just as the front door creaked open and Ellie shuffled inside, gently setting down her pack. Dina eased to her feet, wincing, and scooped JJ up to meet her. He squealed and squirmed in her arms, eyes fixed on Ellie as she approached.

“Hey, bubba,” Ellie murmured, and JJ reached for the rumpled collar of her shirt. “Did you behave for Momma?” She pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

“Only a little,” Dina said, smiling as Ellie leaned in and kissed her too, quick and full. She was left breathless as Ellie pulled away, gasping a little - “Missed you.”

“Missed you too, love,” Ellie murmured. “And my little Potato, my little buddy, hm?” She continued to sing-song as she took JJ in her arms, and he cooed and laughed as she blew raspberries against his belly. “You wanna help Mummy make dinner?”

Dina tried to shake some of the soreness from her body, rubbing at a knot in her shoulder and watching Ellie and JJ in the kitchen. Ellie swayed to a rhythmless tune that sometimes left her mouth in hums and whispers, much to JJ’s delight - he laughed and gurgled as she pulled down pots and pans and staples with her free hand.

Dina rocked back and forth on her feet. “Let me help,” she finally said, striding into the kitchen as Ellie laid down a cutting board.

“Hey, no, go rest,” Ellie countered softly, setting a hand on Dina’s arm. “You’ve had a long day. We’ll be fine, we’re just gonna play with blocks and make dinner.” Ellie smiled crookedly, and Dina just sighed.

“I’ll wake you when it’s ready, alright?” Ellie murmured, and Dina pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth in assent. 

Upstairs, she curled up on Ellie’s side of their bed, drinking in her scent and trying to quell the strange curl of disappointment in her stomach.

She didn’t remember falling asleep - just that a second later she was floating in amorphous darkness, and then there was warm pressure on her arm, and she inhaled sharply and was back in her body -

“Hey.”

Ellie’s face swam into her vision, half thrown into shadow in the light of her bedside lamp - and Dina realized with a start that the windows were pitch black. “Where -”

Ellie caught her as she jolted up, hands gentle and insistent. “Hey, shh, it’s alright. I fed JJ, he’s already down.” 

Dina sank back into the mattress, suddenly tired, and now niggled by the fact that she had missed an entire evening with her family. 

“You were out like a light when I came to check on you,” Ellie murmured, as Dina settled a hand on her arm. “Thought you should rest.”

“We did have a long day playing with blocks,” Dina responded, smile curling along her mouth. Ellie chuckled and leaned in to press a kiss to Dina’s neck, fingertips playing over the strands of her hair as she pulled away. 

“You’re beautiful,” Ellie murmured, and although Dina heard it every day, it still made her heart flutter. She lifted her chin in offering, and Ellie responded, covering Dina’s mouth with hers so softly.

Dina wound her arms lazily around Ellie’s neck, inhaling through her nose as she became aware of the solid heat of Ellie’s arms, bracketing her chest.

“C’mere,” Dina murmured against her mouth, tugging slightly, and Ellie slid into bed, straddling Dina’s hips. “I missed you so much,” she sighed.

“I know, baby,” Ellie replied, leaning down to lick into Dina’s mouth. When she came up for air, Dina was gasping and writhing beneath her. “Want me to make it up to you?”

“Please,” Dina whispered. “Please, Ellie, oh _fuck_ -”

It wasn’t a sound of pleasure but that of pain that ripped itself from Dina’s mouth as she suddenly bolted up, one hand going to her low belly. Ellie was off her immediately as she cursed and rocked - “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ ” - and inhaled sharply through her nose, trying to breathe through the burning sensation that thrummed under her fingers.

“I thought this would have stopped by now,” Dina whispered, voice high, her face tight with discomfort. Ellie hovered, watching Dina hold herself, before biting her lip and sitting down lightly on the edge of the bed. Her hand joined Dina’s, pressing in gentle circles, and Dina relaxed somewhat as warmth seeped through her.

“You wanna go back to Jackson? See the doctor?”

“I just want to _figure this out_ ,” Dina snapped through gritted teeth, wincing as Ellie flinched at her tone. Dina sighed. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, voice low as she laced their fingers together.

“‘s okay,” Ellie said quietly, drawing circles on Dina’s belly with her thumb. “I don’t want you to be in pain.”

Dina tried to tamp down the strand of fear that coiled in her. “You’re right,” she finally replied, resigned. “I should go talk to her.” 

A month later, with physical therapy exercises for postpartum pain in hand, Dina’s stabbing discomfort had decreased to a manageable cadence. More and more, she was tempted to fall back into the routines and patterns through which her body had carried her for nineteen years. But more and more, she stopped herself short - right on the cusp of that familiar space, and still unable to go forward.

It even crept in when Ellie held her at night, in that inviolable space of love and trust - a shadow that wasn’t there, and then was everywhere.

Dina couldn’t help but count the days since they had last made love, not too long before her due date. A snow storm had wrapped their farmhouse up in its cozy, opaque blanket, the only light from the lantern on Ellie’s bedside table. Dina felt like they were in their own little perfect world, with only Ellie and their baby, both moving inside her.

Later, Dina panted, one arm around her rounded belly, sitting on their bed as she caught her breath and Ellie smoothed her hair over her shoulder.

“You make me come like that again and we might have a bigger, baby-shaped problem on our hands,” Dina gasped, and Ellie just chuckled from behind her, low and warm, and pressed a kiss to the base of her neck.

JJ’s birth had been everything she wanted, and everything she dreaded. Some massive, ubiquitous part of her wrested her agency and control away, making her body ripple with contractions, and she was just a passenger along for the ride - and even as Ellie held her hands and murmured into her ear, Dina wanted to climb out of that birthing tub and press pause and cry because she was scared, scared, _scared_ …

But he was so perfect and stunning and miraculous, and Dina wanted to believe that that could somehow cancel out the fear and pain that crested through her as she labored. But it stubbornly stuck around weeks, even months, after giving birth - a stain that she thought would fade with time, but just settled in instead.

And now, their lives were altered so thoroughly that Dina felt pressure to retain something constant from their relationship beforehand - even though Ellie told her, explicitly, that she was fully ready for their lives to turn upside down because of this, that she was _excited_ for this.

Ellie never complained when Dina asked for an ice pack from the freezer, or wished her goodnight with nothing but a chaste kiss and an “I love you”; and the truth was that even months later, Dina still felt fragile, still felt scared to test her own boundaries - scared that they were somehow different now, that they would disappoint both her and Ellie.

And it almost made her feel like she should chastise herself, for wanting intimacy when they had a fragile new life to care for. They were both so, so tired, and Dina loved the miracle that was her child, and she missed the familiarity of Ellie’s body, the thrill of their spontaneity. 

It didn’t help that Ellie seemed so distant sometimes, gaze far away - and Dina couldn’t stop herself from wondering if their lack of physical intimacy was leaving her even more adrift in her own sea of pain…

And then one night, after JJ had gone down, after that new impatience at herself ran through her all day, Dina felt her exasperation and impatience rising to a new high. She sighed, head flopping back against her pillow.

“You good?” Ellie murmured, eyes trained on her book.

Dina was beyond beating around the bush by now.

“I want to have sex.”

In her peripheral vision, she watched Ellie lift her eyes from her book, setting it down in her lap.

“Is this a new kink? Where we dryly tell each other when we want to bone?”

“Oh my _God_ -” 

“Because I could pencil you in, like, next Tuesday-” 

Dina groaned, leaning back against her pillows and pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes, and Ellie chuckled - “Okay, okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Silence billowed between them.

“So, now? Or…” 

Dina made a strangled, exasperated sound and rolled away from Ellie.

How could she explain it? How could she explain that she had felt so adventurous and confident because her body was _hers_ and hers alone, and she knew every inch of it, but now it had transformed completely, it was bent out of shape, and she didn’t know how deep the changes went, and maybe she was too _scared_ to know -

“Hey.” Ellie’s voice was soft, her hand warm on her shoulder - not urging or pulling, just settling there and waiting.

Dina rolled back over and threw her hands into the air in complete exasperation. “I’m scared, okay? I’m scared. What if...” - God, she knew it was stupid, but if she never said anything it would just fester in her, and she covered her face in her hands as if she could escape from her own embarrassment - “What if I look like a...like a clicker down there or something?”

Desperation crested in her voice, both at her predicament and the words that left her mouth. It seemed like far too shallow of a question to fully capture her dilemma, just barely skimming the surface.

She chanced a look up at Ellie through her fingers. And Ellie - thank God for her - didn’t laugh, didn’t joke, just seemed to consider that for a second and then held up a finger.

“Hold that thought,” she murmured as she set her book down and climbed out of their bed, tip-toeing across their bedroom and vanishing into the hallway.

Dina pushed herself into a sitting position just as Ellie poked her head back in. “Actually, don’t hold _that_ thought, specifically. Like, think of puppies or something.”

Dina groaned.

It took a little longer than usual, with the creeping she did so as to not disturb JJ in his room, but Ellie returned soon enough.

“Here,” she said, holding out her hand in offering, and Dina scooted forward on the bed to get a better look. 

It was a circular hand mirror. Dina frowned, letting it rest in her palm. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Look at yourself,” Ellie said simply, and Dina blinked.

Ellie cocked her head, hands shoved into the pockets of her sweatshirt - “See for yourself if there’s really a clicker down there!” - and Dina sighed.

“I’m gonna regret saying that for the rest of my life, aren’t I?” she muttered resignedly as she laid back down, lifting her hips and squirming out of her shorts. Ellie just perched on the edge of the bed, tugging absently at her fingers.

Dina took a deep breath, steeling herself - resisting the urge to roll her eyes at her predicament - and let her legs fall open. It took a minute to of shifting and angling around so that the light hit her skin in the right places, until she could finally get a clear view.

There was the same wiry dark hair, the same mole on the inside of her left thigh, the same ruddy folds of skin. Maybe bits here and there were now shaped a little differently, but still, it was _her_ body - and Dina felt immensely silly, because this was still the same body that had carried her through so much, and given her so much. She cocked her head, curiosity taking the place of embarrassment. “It’s...sort of different.”

Ellie leaned over onto the bed, so that her head was inches from Dina’s. “Think I should get my knife?” she whispered conspiratorially. 

Dina landed a punch to her shoulder - “Okay, okay, I deserved that” - but then turned her attention back to the mirror. Ellie wriggled closer until they lay side by side, with a hand on Dina’s knee, firm and warm.

“See?” Ellie murmured, dragging her fingertips up Dina’s inner thigh. “You’re beautiful.” She reached that thatch of black hair and paused, and Dina watched her lover’s long fingers, reflected back up at her. 

“This okay?” Ellie’s breath was hot against her ear, and Dina felt something go out of her at the feeling of solid warmth against her. Some tension unwound in her, and she let the hand holding the mirror fall back against the mattress.

“Yeah,” she murmured, head dropping to the side. Ellie’s body was warm, and her touch was soft and sweet, and Dina instinctively moved towards her.

“Should I keep going?”

And Dina was suddenly aware of how close Ellie was, so close that their noses now brushed.

“Kiss me,” she breathed.

The first kiss was chaste, as Ellie simply placed her mouth against Dina’s, waiting - and Dina pushed back, a little more insistent. She licked against Ellie’s bottom lip and Ellie responded, opening her mouth and letting Dina lead. Ellie’s other arm had gone around Dina’s shoulders, and it now pulled her even closer, as Dina tilted her head and deepened the kiss. There was no desperation, no freneticism - just deep, old familiarity as they savored each other. 

Dina undulated slowly, rocking against Ellie’s hand and sighing as warmth spread down to her toes. Her breath came a little faster and she pulled away slightly, meeting Ellie’s wide eyes with her own. “Please, please touch me…”

Ellie drew small, insistent circles with her fingers and licked into Dina’s mouth, while Dina wrapped her arms around Ellie’s shoulders, sinking into softness. Dina felt like Ellie was leading her somewhere, where she was tentative and stumbling - but Ellie’s hand in hers was solid and confident, as she encouraged and redirected and smiled all the way. 

And soon Dina was following with energy, body writhing as she whimpered. She encouraged Ellie to press harder, gasping as she nibbled and sucked at her skin.

And then pleasure arced through Dina and she sucked down air, back arching involuntarily - “Oh, _fuck_ -”

Ellie withdrew slightly - “Too much?” - but Dina shook her head vigorously, gasping - “Don’t stop, don’t stop, please-”

The minutes ticked on in seconds and Dina felt like a boat in a storm, at the mercy of the current, holding on for dear life. A broken cry wrenched from her throat - “I’m so close, please, I -” She cut herself off with another gasp and a cry, as her body convulsed and Ellie kissed her neck. Her lips landed near her ear again.

“You need me inside you?”

“Not -” Dina stumbled, gasping. “Not yet, I’m sorry, I-”

“It’s okay,” Ellie murmured next to her ear. “This is perfect, baby. You’re perfect.”

And Dina shuddered, and something flared below her stomach, something that was going to overtake her. She clung to Ellie as her gasps came higher and higher and something utterly unnameable coiled in her, something wild and overwhelming -

Ellie was a constant in her ear, whispering words of encouragement as she went over the edge, giving something for Dina to grasp onto as everything else went out from under her, as her gasps became cries and her body shook -

“I’m here, baby, I got you, I got you...That’s it, love, that’s so good…”

And Dina practically sobbed into the night air, writhing and twitching, and Ellie slowly softened her touch until her fingers barely ghosted along Dina’s slick flesh.

“Holy fuck,” Dina murmured shakily as she came down, feeling Ellie grin against her neck. 

Very slowly, Dina became aware of her labored breathing, of Ellie’s slick fingers on her thigh. A solid heaviness settled in her chest, something that made her want to roll over into the soft darkness. Ellie kissed up one side of her neck and down the other, and Dina moaned absently, inclining her head to capture Ellie’s lips in hers. After a beat, Ellie pulled away with a soft smile.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” Dina murmured softly.

Ellie rubbed absently along Dina’s belly. “That didn’t hurt?”

“Not unless you count my pride,” Dina muttered.

Ellie just chuckled as she ran her fingers through Dina’s hair. Her touch was so soft and so warm and finally, Dina didn’t feel awful about how she had started the night.

“For the record, even if you did have a clicker down there, I’d still be down. I _am_ immune, after all.”

Moment gone. Dina just pressed her hands to her face and groaned.

“What a _fantastic_ way to use the miracle of your rare biology,” Dina murmured flatly, as she scooted up the bed. Ellie followed, tucking herself against Dina’s side and looking up at her with placating eyes.

“I love you?”

Dina just sighed and took Ellie’s hand in her own, lacing their fingers together. 

“Forever and always, weirdo.”

**II.**

What was it, to rediscover something old as if it were new again?

There was so much newness in coming back to Dina: to the home with which Ellie was unfamiliar, which Dina had decorated herself. To Dina’s smiles and laughter, miraculously the same after everything that had happened. To Dina’s life, its rhythms and crests, its lows and zeniths. Ellie had to remind herself that she was allowed back here, that it was okay, after months and months and months of work.

It felt like everything was happening for the first time again, and yet not. 

Their not-first-kiss had made Ellie want to combust, to fold in on herself, to drop to her knees and worship at the altar that was Dina and her love. Since that moment, Ellie had felt like a live wire.

Their not-first-time was _desperate_ , like they didn’t know when they were going to do this again - like Ellie had to show Dina, _now_ , how much she meant to her, and this was the way she had to do it. And Dina had to know, she _had_ to know.

Dina clawed at Ellie’s clothes and whimpered desperately into her mouth and gasped hard, and they tumbled back onto their bed together, with Dina grinding down against Ellie and Ellie dragging her nails down her back, desperate to get to the skin underneath, so long untouched -

And then Ellie rolled on top of her, pinning her against the mattress, and suddenly it wasn’t Dina below her, soft and pliable - 

No, it was Abby, face distorted under the waves, clawing at Ellie’s arms, and Ellie’s hands were wrapped around her throat -

And Ellie wrenched herself away and stumbled off the bed and onto the floor, knees and elbows colliding with the hardwood. She retched dryly, panting hard and shaking as the room spun. And then Dina was there and Ellie clung to her as she tried to remember what her therapist had told her about breathing, as a roar sounded in her ears…

“It’s okay,” Dina murmured in her ear as Ellie shook - “You’re home, I promise, you’re with me, it’s okay…” - and a strangled sound fought through Ellie’s throat and she was _crying_ -

She panted and wheezed, the pain in her knees and warmth on her face somehow bringing her back to the present, as anxiety and shame curled in her stomach. Dina was warm next to her, and Ellie leaned against her heavily and swallowed. “I’m sorry, Dina, I’m so sorry-”

“It’s okay,” Dina murmured, pressing a kiss to Ellie’s cheek, eyes open and honest. Ellie closed her eyes and tried to slow her breathing, to grasp onto that rhythm that had been ripped away from her. Dina’s touch against her cheek was soft. “Come back to bed?”

Ellie continued to babble even as she stood - “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” - but Dina just shushed her and eased her down onto the mattress. She rubbed Ellie’s hands until they stopped shaking, and then wrapped her up in her arms, murmuring that she was safe, she was safe, she was safe, on a loop, on a loop, on a loop...

Ellie didn’t remember falling asleep. The next thing she knew, she was waking up in an empty bed, and Dina was greeting her with a mug of tea and a kiss.

She tried to pay attention as Dina went on about a story JJ had told her earlier that morning, but her mind was fuzzy and sluggish - everything felt detached and distant and too close and too raw.

She had let so much of who she was be taken from her, transformed into something she didn’t recognize, whether by her own actions or those of others. She couldn’t let this - the private love and trust that she and Dina shared - be taken from them too.

Hardened by this thought, Ellie carried it into the next afternoon, kissing Dina with urgency and trying to grasp onto a semblance of confidence. She gasped and arched as Dina kissed down her neck - yes, she knew this, everything was okay. It was _finally_ going to happen, she would _make_ it happen if she had to. 

But when Dina dipped down between her thighs and slipped Ellie’s legs over her shoulders, that old anxiety was back - and there was something in her that wouldn’t uncurl, wouldn’t let go. After a few minutes, she gently tugged Dina back up to meet her, blurting something out about fingers. “My jaw was getting tired anyways,” Dina giggled, and shame flared in Ellie’s gut.

She was still distracted, she couldn’t settle, like her body was waiting for _something_. And Dina, of course, soon took notice. She paused her insistent circles against Ellie’s flesh, pressing a kiss to her temple.

“You with me, babe?”

“Yeah,” Ellie said shakily. “Yeah, sorry, I just…”

“You want me to do anything different?”

And, God, that was what Dina did - she just gave and gave and gave, even when Ellie had nothing to respond with, even as she hung perpetually in limbo, feeling too much and nothing at all.

Dina’s lips were warm against her cheek, and Ellie turned to meet her gaze. “You okay?” she murmured, brows crinkled in concern as her movements stilled. Ellie swallowed.

“I’m so sorry, babe, I...I don’t know what’s going on.” Her voice pitched and cracked.

“Hey. It’s okay,” Dina murmured, withdrawing her hand and rubbing absently at the swell of Ellie’s stomach. “It’s okay.”

It _wasn’t_ okay. “Let me make it up to you. Please?” Ellie asked, and her hands twitched as she tried to remember what made Dina feel good, and oh _God_ what if she messed that up too…

“Hush, it’s okay-”

“Please, Dina, I have to-”

“No.” And Dina said it with firmness, voice still soft. “I promise, you don’t.” And she pressed a quick kiss to Ellie’s mouth, murmured a “Be right back”, and slipped out of their bedroom. 

Ellie blinked, sitting up, rubbing at the back of her neck and fiddled with the bracelet on her right wrist. She suddenly felt exposed and awkward. As Dina padded back into their bedroom, Ellie was ready with her arsenal of apologies, but Dina turned around and held out...a hairbrush? 

“Uh.”

“Brush my hair,” Dina said simply. 

Ellie blinked.

“What...I don’t...are you sure?”

“Definitely,” Dina replied, a soft smile on her face. “Come on, I’ve been up since five in the morning and it’s a mess. Please?”

Dina’s hair was decisively _not_ a mess from where Ellie stood, but she gave in all the same. “Okay,” she murmured, and Dina smiled and sat down on the bed, as Ellie positioned herself behind her and gently took out her ponytail.

Dina’s hair tumbled down her back in long, dark waves, and Ellie started at the ends, brushing carefully before ascending. Dina sighed as she worked higher and higher up to her scalp, leaning into Ellie’s motions, groaning softly at the contact. 

Dina let Ellie pull her hair back into a braid, humming happily when Ellie tied it off and pressed a kiss to the base of her neck in finality. Then she sighed and leaned back into Ellie’s arms, turning her head to brush her lips against her cheek. 

“I love you,” she murmured, and Ellie curled her arms around her stomach and held her closer, burying her head in the crook of Dina’s shoulder and rocking back and forth.

“I love you so much,” she murmured, pressing a kiss there, while Dina traced the bones of her wrist.

They stayed like that for a few more minutes, swaying gently, preserved in the amber light of their bedroom.

Then Dina yawned hugely, untangled herself from Ellie’s arms and leaned over to turn off the light. “C’mere,” she murmured, and Ellie curled back around her, pulling her close. 

The days wore on, and they kept at it, so slowly. 

Ellie sometimes felt like she was recalibrating her own body. Unearthing her triggers felt exhausting and tedious and _frightening_ , frightening that some part of her was so ready to respond with fear, that something scared and angry still lurked inside her. She felt like she was relearning her body all over again, but now she had to sift through years and years of new, horrifying baggage.

And she couldn’t help but silently speculate on Dina’s satisfaction, her own emotional well-being, her own needs. Dina was such a physical person, always touching some part of Ellie, wrapping her arms around her when they had been apart for any length of time, running her hands through Ellie’s hair when they lounged on the couch together.

Ellie voiced her concerns one morning, while Dina chopped vegetables, and Dina just shrugged in response. “It takes as long as it takes,” she said simply. “Peel these potatoes, please?”

“But what about you?”

“What about me?” Dina said, as she cored a pepper.

“I...you...don’t you want to…” Ellie waved her hands absently, feeling ineffectual, and then Dina’s hand was on one of her wrists.

“Please don’t hurt yourself,” Dina chuckled, as she gently prised the potato peeler from Ellie’s grasp. Ellie let her arms fall, still looking at Dina placatingly.

Dina tucked a strand of hair behind Ellie’s ear and sighed, smiling softly, before stepping forward, pulling Ellie into a full-body hug. Surprised, Ellie froze with her arms out before she relaxed, pulling Dina closer to her, feeling her nuzzle into the crook of her neck.

Dina pulled away slightly, still wrapped tightly around Ellie. “It could happen tomorrow, or next month, or next year,” she murmured. “And it would all be fine by me.”

Through it all, Ellie felt like she was letting go of something that was so old that it had grown into her, become part of her - and she didn’t recognize the body underneath. She didn’t know what it wanted, or how it worked, and she was afraid - because what if Dina saw the newness and didn’t want her anymore?

And then one evening, Dina asked Robin and Susan if they could watch JJ for the night, and took Ellie out for dinner. They sat in their usual spot in the Tipsy Bison, murmuring secrets to each other and holding hands. Ellie felt aloft in an easy happiness that ran smoothly into the evening, all the way back home. 

Dina stumbled over the threshold slightly, giggling. “Oops!” she yelped, giving in to complete peals of laughter as Ellie stepped in after her.

“You’re _drunk_ , babe,” Ellie said, chuckling behind her hand, swaying slightly. “You had one drink and you’re _drunk_ -”

“I am _tipsy_ ,” Dina added, wagging a finger menacingly. “There’s a big difference, Williams.” She swayed for a second, studying her feet. “Help me with my shoes?”

“Drunk people can’t untie their shoes,” Ellie said sagely, though she dropped to her knees anyways to tug at the knots of Dina’s laces. Dina just scoffed, and prodded Ellie as she fumbled over a particularly stubborn knot. “It’s _dark_ in here!” Ellie shot back, voice low.

“Why are we _whispering?_ ” Dina replied, and Ellie chuckled, leaning absently against her knee. 

In truth, Ellie was thoroughly distracted by how Dina’s jeans hugged her thighs, by the warmth that emanated from her skin. Dina stepped shakily out of her shoes, hands on Ellie’s shoulders for balance, and Ellie stood. She leaned into Dina and wrapped her arms around her waist, using her momentum to push them both into a slow, lazy arc across the living room.

“Thought we were done dancing for the night,” Dina murmured, winding her arms tighter around Ellie’s shoulders.

“Never,” Ellie whispered in return, studying the hollow of Dina’s throat as they swayed, how some of the loose strands of her hair fell against it. She couldn’t resist - she leaned in and pressed a tender kiss there.

Dina tipped her head back as Ellie continued to paint her neck in kisses, slowly traveling up to her mouth. Ellie pressed her hand to the small of Dina’s back as their lips met, and Dina arched forward and kissed back hungrily. That hunger soon thrummed inside Ellie as well, and she started upstairs, laughing into Dina’s mouth as she stumbled here and there.

But by the time they reached the landing, everything felt smooth and bright and easy. Dina was warm and familiar in Ellie’s hands, and they slotted together like they were made for each other - and that was how they tumbled into bed together, desperate and _wanting_ -

Ellie pulled Dina on top of her, gripping her hips tightly as Dina moved against her and a strangled noise left her throat, and her hands scrabbled desperately for the buttons of Ellie’s shirt. 

“Patience is a _virtue_ ,” Ellie teased against her mouth, but Dina _growled_ , low in her throat, a noise that sent desire arcing through Ellie - so she switched to nibbling along her neck as her hands joined Dina’s and helped.

They divested each other of their clothing soon enough, and Dina straddled Ellie, decisive in her movements. Ellie let her, scattering kisses along her neck and chest and whimpering as Dina rocked against her, so soft and so beautiful - 

And Dina gently pressed Ellie back into the pillows and worked her way down her body, kissing each freckle she could find, trailing her fingertips over Ellie’s hip and stomach. She left hot, open-mouthed kisses down her chest, and Ellie gasped all the while, threading her fingers through Dina’s soft hair. 

Eventually, Dina rested a hand on Ellie’s knee, and her legs fell open in response. Dina returned to Ellie’s mouth, kissing her slowly as her hand meandered over the crease of Ellie’s thigh.

“Promise me something?” Dina murmured against her lips, as Ellie whined with impatience. 

“Anything,” she gasped.

“No pressure, okay?” Dina’s eyes were wide and dark and earnest. “Just let me make you feel good.”

Ellie took a shaky breath, and tried to let go: of meaning, of expectations, of whatever this was supposed to be now - of whatever _she_ was supposed to be now.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Dina smiled, and she leaned forward to press her mouth over Ellie’s at the same time that her fingers played over her clit.

It took Ellie longer than she expected to respond to Dina’s touch, and she almost let her impatience and shame rise in her again. But Dina - blessed, beautiful Dina - took her time, reining Ellie in, murmuring that they could take as long as they needed. She scattered kisses over every inch of skin she could reach, pressed her mouth against Ellie’s neck and breasts. And soon Ellie was rocking into Dina’s hand, letting her legs fall open wider, tangling a hand in Dina’s thick, dark hair. She looked up at Dina’s softly smiling face with nothing but wonder and awe.

A high-pitched whine escaped from her throat. “I need…” She gasped, her words dying as she shuddered.

“You can tell me, baby,” Dina murmured as she worked her fingers.

Ellie inhaled sharply. “I need you inside me,” she gasped, angling her face towards Dina’s so their lips met again.

“I can do that,” Dina whispered with a smile as she pulled away, letting her hand move lower. They both inhaled as Dina slowly slipped a finger into her warm, wet heat, thumbing her clit now; and Ellie arched desperately and closing her eyes, as all her world narrowed to Dina’s hand between her legs and Dina’s voice in her ear.

“Does that feel good?” Dina murmured, and it was such a _simple_ question that Ellie was almost floored by it - it didn’t just feel good, it was _momentous_...

“Yeah, baby, so good... _fuck_ I missed you.” Ellie curled back around Dina, panting against her neck.

“I missed you too,” Dina whispered into her hair. Her thrusts were slow and languid and Ellie whimpered and gasped at the contact, at how _deep_ she could reach, all the way down to her soul - and Dina kept up a steady stream of soft words into Ellie’s ear: how beautiful she was like this, how much Dina loved her…

Ellie tipped her head back and felt something inside her shift and open, and she gripped Dina’s shoulders and whimpered - “More, babe, please…”

Dina eased out, swiping over her clit again before returning with two fingers. “Yeah?” she murmured into Ellie’s hair.

“Please, please, please,” Ellie whined mindlessly, because now she was so _empty_ and she needed Dina, and then she was gasping as she was filled again. Dina set a more insistent pace now and Ellie rocked to meet her, and then Dina’s tongue was in her mouth and on her neck and she was rocketing towards _something_ -

“Dina,” she gasped, and suddenly her breath was gone. “Dina, Dina, Dina…” She wanted to tell her why, why everything was so urgent now, but some part of her didn’t want to speak it into existence, now that it was finally within her reach...

But Dina just kept up her pace, winding her free hand through Ellie’s hair and kissing along her collarbone, and sucking a nipple into her mouth. Dina’s name became a chant in Ellie’s mouth, as her fingers slicked between her thighs, steady and insistent and warm.

“Fuck, Dina, _fuck_ , I-” Ellie’s gasp tore her own words from her throat, and all she could do was whimper and shake. 

“I know,” Dina whispered, warm and solid inside of her and next to her. And Ellie arched and a cry was wrenched from her throat and suddenly nothing felt real anymore, there was nothing but Dina, her hands and her body and her voice in her ear - “Just like that, love, come for me, I’m here” - and then all the breath went out of Ellie’s body, and she let go and let Dina take her there -

Great gasping cries were wrenched from Ellie’s mouth as her body seized in a jagged, frantic rhythm, clamping down around Dina as her fingers kept up their steady tempo, helping her through it - tethering her to something tangible and real because otherwise Ellie knew that she would absolutely disintegrate, she would lose all form and shape because there was only _Dina_ , Dina, Dina…

Ellie cried out against Dina’s neck, tasted the salt on her skin and clutched Dina to her, pressed her thighs together and pulled her deeper - and Dina complied, pressing soft kisses against Ellie’s shoulder as her shudders quieted.

Ellie slowly realized that she was still repeating Dina’s name, whispering now as she twitched with her aftershocks and as Dina slowly withdrew from her body; and Dina was smiling down at her, and brushing her hair out of her face. Their eyes met.

“Hi,” Dina whispered.

Ellie’s brain could hardly catch up with her mouth. “ _Fuck_.”

Dina snorted - “Language, babe” - and Ellie just ran her hands shakily over her face and panted.

“You okay?”

“‘Okay’,” Ellie slurred, “does not even come _close_ to how I am feeling…”

Dina just chuckled, snuggling further into Ellie’s side, and Ellie felt like she was floating on a cloud, or high, or drunk - or maybe just fully intoxicated, all at once, as every cell in her body buzzed.

“I am definitely making that up to you,” she murmured - “when my brain starts working again.” And Dina laughed - a high, sparkling sound that made Ellie grin through her exhaustion.

“How about tomorrow,” Dina murmured with finality as she pulled their blankets up over them, and Ellie tangled their legs together.

“Mmm, fair,” Ellie replied, pulling Dina close and rubbing at the base of her neck. She quieted for a minute, sliding into relaxation and listening to the rhythm of Dina’s breathing against her chest.

“Thank you,” Ellie finally murmured, and Dina smiled and leaned up to press a chaste kiss over her mouth. 

“Anytime,” she slurred back suggestively, and Ellie snorted.

“Any _where?_ ” she suggested, unable to help herself, and Dina laughed outright.

“You wish, babe,” she murmured, patting Ellie on the head. “Now sleep.”

“Only if you do,” Ellie whispered back, and Dina’s eyes shone in the darkness.

“Deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first section references JJ's birth in this narrative universe, which is explored in more detail in [Chapter 5](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25553626/chapters/63449278) of _to call myself beloved_.
> 
> As always, continued thanks to folks for leaving kudos, comments, bookmarks, etc. - y'all really make my day brighter.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dina and Ellie come home. But it isn't home, not really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote smut instead of Chapter 11 of to call myself beloved ~~because my life is falling to pieces!~~
> 
> This piece is darker in tone than what I originally intended for this series, but I ultimately decided to include it anyways, just to flesh out the narrative.
> 
> Chronologically, this takes place the morning after a flashback scene in [Chapter 8](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25553626/chapters/64431802) of TCMB.
> 
> Also, a **content warning** for references to rough sex. As always, if folks need additional things tagged, let me know.

The first few seconds after she woke up were always the hardest.

That was the time when the world around her blurred and shifted, where time was just the seconds that ticked on as she came back to her body. There was no safety in that limbo, only caution and vigilance. She could be anywhere, watched by anyone - and so she waited, frozen beneath her blankets.

Ellie didn’t know anything about the house in which Maria had set them up, and unfamiliarity rose and rankled in her all too easily. It twisted in her gut and primed her to run, to fight. Her mind was still fresh from travel and fresh for violence and fighting, and it refused to set down its weapons just because of a few hours of sleep in a bed. Things took shape in her vision, and the shadows and corners of the room loomed at her. 

Ellie sat up slowly, trying to force her body into quietude despite the rapid thrum of her brain. Her body ached in ways that were equal parts familiar and unknown. Certainly some of them had to be brought on by sleeping on a soft mattress for the first time in months. 

Her hair was loose, still damp from the previous night’s shower. She frowned at its length and pulled it back into a bun. She’d have to cut it soon.

Her bare toes ghosted over the chilled hardwood and Ellie hissed, but a dry thirst twisted in the back of her throat anyways. Dina stirred beside her, reaching for the warm spot where Ellie had been, making a soft noise in her sleep. Ellie leaned down and kissed her temple, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. 

“I’ll be right back,” she murmured.

Ellie's whole body was sore, but that was nothing compared to her mind, which ached and tried to whir back up to speed as she peered out of the bedroom. Unbidden, it went through the same checklists that had occupied her mind for months, the things that she could not put down. The floorboards creaked and she froze, inhaling sharply. Making her way downstairs was like walking through a minefield. By the time she reached the ground floor, her heart was beating in her throat and her palms were damp.

Her knife gleamed on the kitchen counter in the weak morning light, probably forgotten downstairs the surreal blur of the previous evening, and irritation flashed through Ellie. She pocketed it. 

There were no cups in the first cabinet she tried, so she reached for a second one, next to the sink. Her arm was up and outstretched into the open cabinet and then there was a _crash_ from outside and a long rattle and Ellie ducked, knocking against something, pressing herself flat against another cabinet. A cup smashed above her, into the sink, and Ellie flinched at the sound and groaned as her heart beat in her throat and her hands shook-

And then there were rapid, heavy footsteps coming from upstairs, and there was Dina, rushing down the stairs, hair tied back messily and pistol held in front of her -

“It’s just me, it’s just me!” Ellie called out, voice breaking, trying to contain Dina’s fear even as her own ran fast and loose under her skin, and Dina whirled. “I’m over here, Dina, I just broke a cup, I’m sorry-”

“Fuck,” Dina gasped, pressing a hand to her chest, and then over her belly. “Fuck, I feel like I’m having a heart attack-”

“It was my fault, I’m sorry baby -”

“Jesus,” Dina murmured as she helped Ellie stand, avoiding the ceramic shards scattered at her feet. Ellie’s hand was sweaty in hers.

Dina panted and managed to slow her breathing, although the pistol still shook in her hands even as she uncocked the hammer. “It’s so early, babe,” she gasped, clearly trying to gather a semblance of calm. “Let’s go back to bed.”

Water forgotten, Ellie followed Dina, watching the pale circles of her heels lift and fall in front of her as they climbed the stairs. By the time they arrived back in their bedroom, Ellie felt hypnotized in that way she always felt when she fixated on one part of Dina’s body for too long. Then the blankets were warm around her, and Dina’s back was against her chest, and everything was too much and not enough.

“Feels weird being back.”

Dina’s voice was heavy and scratchy with sleep, and Ellie let the offered thread of conversation hang as she pretended to drift off.

Ellie waited until Dina’s breathing evened into a deep, slow tempo. For the next few hours, she stared at the far corner of the room. It was stained red in the strengthening light of the rising sun. It looked like the color of blood.

* * *

The day unfolded before them with surrealism. The primal switches of survival in Ellie’s head were slow to come down, and the sheer convenience of everything made the world tilt on its axis and made Ellie’s brain stumble over itself with attempted understanding.

It all felt menial, false, disingenuous to get food from the grocer or the communal pantry instead of summoning the mental energy to bring down game or scavenge in the right places; to cook dinner over a stove that didn’t need to be nurtured or cared for like a sputtering campfire in a rainstorm; to handle unfamiliar cuts of meat, things that she hadn’t taken apart herself.

The cottage was not their own - it reeked of unfamiliarity. The furniture, the layout, but also the tiny cracks in the walls, the ways the doors creaked or certain windows didn’t fully shut. After Dina went out for errands, Ellie poured over them, for longer than she knew she should have. She vacillated between her fear of continuing to look and finding more flaws, more things that would crawl into her body and haunt her waking and sleeping thoughts; and her desire to map out every inch of this place. 

By the time Dina came back for the evening, she had bitten most of her nails down to the quick and had drawn, scratched out, and redrawn another several pages of moths in her journal. She was trying in vain to capture one of the trees that grew outside of a window off of the kitchen - a twisted, dry thing - when Dina arrived, hefting a couple of bags.

“I got that,” Ellie supplied, glad for an excuse to use her body for something that would distract her from the constant, low hum of her mind. “You carry too much, babe.”

“You were asleep when I left,” Dina countered with a smile as she rolled her right shoulder gingerly. Ellie didn’t have the fight in her to explain that she had closed just her eyes and hoped sleep would come to her, but it never did. It always hummed out of her reach.

“I grabbed dinner,” Dina said, as she pulled a couple of cartons from one of the bags. “I think I forgot what an actual vegetable tastes like.” Ellie chuckled.

“And I stopped by your place,” Dina continued, resting a hand on the small of Ellie’s back as she dug through the second bag. “It hadn’t been touched. I got some of your books. And your toothbrush.” She flourished it with a chuckle, but Ellie was drawn to her books like a magnet, running her hands over the covers as she stacked them neatly.

Ellie wanted to ask if someone was living in Joel’s house now, but she bit her tongue, refusing to look at that tidal wave that loomed in her mind, that threatened to overtake her. “Thanks, baby,” she murmured, pressing her lips to Dina’s temple as a distraction. 

After putting half of her dinner, untouched, in the fridge, Ellie sat on the couch, which gave her a good view of all of the windows on the ground floor, and tried to read. She selected the thickest book that Dina had grabbed - a practically ancient, encyclopedic thing that was more reference manual than book - and watched the sun go down. 

It took her a while to realize that she had read the same paragraph about _Asteriornis maastrichtensis_ three times over. Part of her brain, the part that buzzed and itched, kept her looking in her periphery, watching the corners of the house. It was no worse than taking watch, really -

“Babe?”

And Ellie looked up to see Dina in a nightshirt that fell to her knees. “You coming to bed?”

“Oh,” Ellie breathed. “Oh, yeah, of course.” She glanced around the living room once more before standing. The windows stared back, empty and cold and shining.

“How’s your book?”

Ellie frowned. She wanted to tell Dina that it felt wrong, to get lost in another world now, to think about the things she loved and the things she had wanted to be and to do.

“It’s alright.”

“You should go back there tomorrow and see if there’s anything else you want.”

Ellie set her book down on her bedside table, next to her knife. She adjusted it so that it was as close to her side of the bed as possible, and tried to commit its location to memory. “Maybe.”

Dina didn’t go to her side of the bed, instead leaning against Ellie and smoothing a hand along her shirt. She tugged gently on a sleeve. “Lay down with me?”

And Ellie let Dina pull her back onto the unfamiliar bed, where she slowly straddled Ellie’s hips and hummed and swayed. Dina ran her hands down her own body, finding Ellie’s and placing them on her ribcage. She wound her arms around Ellie’s neck and gave a long exhale through her nose, tucking a loose lock of hair behind Ellie’s ear.

“Hey,” she whispered, voice low and soft.

“Hi,” Ellie replied, and she leaned forward to capture Dina’s lips in her own, gently pulling her forward so her back arched under Ellie’s palms.

“I missed this,” Dina sighed as Ellie slipped her hands under her nightshirt, and Ellie felt a flash of shame - for all the hurried moments they’d had on their way to and from Seattle, all the times she could have savored Dina but instead took her quick and hard because there was never enough time. The time for tenderness had passed - it had died in the basement of a chalet...

Dina removed her nightshirt and Ellie leaned up to nuzzle her breasts. She licked along her new stretch marks and kissed her dusky nipples and ran her hands up Dina’s back and into her hair. “It’s so shiny,” she murmured nonsensically as she massaged Dina’s scalp, and Dina gave tiny moans of pleasure in between giggles.

“You can thank all those pregnancy hormones,” she murmured with a smile, as she turned her head to kiss the inside of Ellie’s wrist. And then she leaned in and kissed Ellie full on the mouth, with equal parts softness and rocking desperation. Ellie responded, a low moan rising in the back of her throat with her need - to make Dina feel good, to make them both forget.

Ellie gently flipped Dina over and removed her own clothes with haste, supporting herself on her elbows as she pressed a line of wet kisses down Dina’s neck. She lingered at her breasts again, giving them equal attention with her fingers and tongue and teeth as Dina whined and rolled beneath her. “I think they’re bigger,” she murmured against Dina’s skin, and Dina just chuckled in response, low and warm.

“You wish.”

Ellie kissed along the swell of Dina’s stomach, turning her head to press an ear there as Dina threaded her fingers through her hair. “I love you,” she murmured, rubbing along Dina’s belly with her palms. “I love you both, so much…” 

How long had it been? The fact that Ellie didn’t know made a new, thick desire rise up in her, made her feverish as she eased Dina’s underwear off and threw it to the side. Dina whimpered and let her legs fall open, and Ellie scooted down the mattress, tugging Dina down with her until her knees hit the floor...

Ellie wasted no time with teasing, not when she could see how wet Dina was, how much she needed her. Ellie parted her gently and kissed Dina like she kissed her mouth, slow and deep and tender, and Dina’s gasp was a surprised, broken thing.

Ellie alternated between sucking at Dina’s clit and dipping inside her with her tongue, reveling in how Dina cried out at each warm intrusion. She would sometimes linger inside a moment longer, savoring the taste there - she tried to remember if it was different now that her pregnancy was further along, or if it had just been so long that she had forgotten...

But the rising volume of Dina’s cries, and the minute shaking in her legs, reminded her of her task at hand, and Ellie set about working at her clit until her jaw ached. She occasionally took detours to lathe her tongue all the way up her folds in a hot stripe, making Dina writhe and gasp in response.

“I missed you so much,” Ellie murmured against Dina’s thigh, deciding that Dina didn’t have a monopoly on callbacks to better times. “I missed how you taste-” and Dina cried out as Ellie sucked her clit back into her mouth as if to make emphasize her point. She replaced her mouth with her fingers a moment later, and kept talking, lost in some primal, instinctive place - “Can you come for me? I want you to come before I fuck you, baby” - and Ellie winced internally at the roughness in her own voice while Dina convulsed and gave a strangled cry-

Ellie latched onto her clit one more time and Dina finally came, and Ellie held her thighs open and down as she cried and gasped and shuddered, hands clenching and unclenching around Ellie’s wrists. 

Ellie kept her mouth on Dina as she came down, softening her touch and lathing her tongue against the hood of her clit. When Dina’s long cries had quieted to small, shaking gasps, Ellie parted her again and licked gently along the creases of her folds and around her opening, cleaning her up in the way she knew Dina loved. Ellie knew she craved the luxuries and soft moments that they never had time for out in the wild - when things had to be fast and muffled and frantic instead.

Guilt thrummed in her as she tried to remember the last time she had made love to Dina like this. Certainly not since that first time, when she had held Dina beneath her and let her guide her strokes and touches until she came on Ellie’s fingers with a look of absolute shock and pleasure on her face.

Ellie had breathed her in and tried to memorize every detail, watching her brows knit together and then relax, watching her mouth form wordless sounds that bled into her name. Ellie wanted to stay there for all the rest of time. 

But it couldn’t last. It never could.

The next night, as Dina kissed her way down her body, all Ellie could see was Joel, broken and bleeding - and she was nauseated by the knowledge that maybe she could have done something, maybe she could have gotten there sooner and stopped the whole thing, if only she had reminded herself that she didn’t deserve Dina’s touch, that love and pleasure were things that only came to her at the greatest costs...

“We don’t have to do this,” Dina murmured next to her knee, sensing Ellie’s reluctance, and guilt flashed through Ellie again - of course she would disappoint Dina as well...

Anger blossomed in her as they traveled to Seattle, anger that had nothing to do with Dina but sometimes broke through Ellie in rapid impatience, bleeding onto her anyways. When they were ahead of schedule and she let Dina’s morning teasing drift towards a sweet, anticipatory high, Ellie would slip one hand down the front of her shorts and fuck her hard and fast - anything to take the edge off the rage that curdled in her, anything that would let her chase something that would make her feel good, that would help her hold onto a shred of who she was trying to be before this all happened -

Dina would respond with just as much roughness, smiling and playful, and Ellie didn’t have the heart to tell her that this wasn’t what she had imagined. This wasn’t the soft, warm bliss of their love about which she had fantasized for so long - like that first time, when they were so lost in each other, when everything was beautiful and everything was terrible. But then, this was what she deserved, wasn’t it? 

Dishonesty - that was what she deserved. 

But for now, Dina cooed and sighed at the attention and spread her legs wider, running her hands over her belly and tangling her fingers in Ellie’s hair where she could reach. She gasped when Ellie ghosted over a particularly sensitive spot before pressing an apologetic kiss to her skin. And then Dina’s fingers tightened in her hair, and her moans pitched upward again.

“I need you,” Dina whimpered above her. Ellie pressed a final kiss between her legs before working her way back up her body and they scooted back up the bed together. Ellie reversed her previous route, kissing her belly, her breasts, her neck, as Dina whined with impatience. 

“I know, I know,” Ellie murmured, forgetting the roughness of her previous demand. She wanted to bring Dina back up again first, so she rolled Dina’s clit under her slick fingers and left bruises along the column of her neck and down to her breasts, until Dina was arching and gasping and begging. 

Ellie kissed her pulse point and then sat up, coaxing Dina to spread her legs again. She loved watching herself disappear inside Dina; loved watching Dina’s face tense, relax, and tense again, and then fall open as she adjusted and rippled around her; loved sinking into her wet, tight heat. Every time was like discovering something she had lost - and Ellie tried to ignore the thought that this time, her loss had almost been nauseatingly, shatteringly real.

She used both hands, working at Dina’s clit as she eased a finger inside, slow and encouraging. “That’s it, babe, is that good?” Dina just gasped a “Yes” and they both groaned as Ellie reached as far into Dina as she could, still drawing circles on her clit, before she started to thrust languidly. 

Dina tipped her head back and whimpered, rocking to meet Ellie’s hands, almost dazed as she reached for her lover. “I missed you, baby, I missed this,” she babbled again, as Ellie crooked her finger and felt another wave of shame and disorientation - at all the killing her hands had done, all the ways she knew how to dismember and incapacitate a person, all the ways she knew how to make Dina moan and cry out and come...

Dina was shaking now, rocking her hips to meet Ellie’s thrusts. At Ellie’s whispered “More?”, Dina gasped and nodded, whimpering as Ellie slowly withdrew. Dina continued to rock against Ellie’s other hand, still pressing firm circles to her clit.

Ellie gasped as she finally entered Dina with two fingers, and Dina’s hands were gripping the sheets, she was inhaling repeatedly and gasping as if she couldn’t draw breath, shaking and crying -

Ellie realized with a start that she was coming already, and she kept up her thrusts and leaned forward to talk her through it - knowing that Dina sometimes needed something to ground her, to keep her from becoming completely untethered -

“I’ve got you, baby, you can let go -”

Ellie kissed down along Dina’s neck as she came down. She felt Dina’s pulse flickering beneath her mouth and around her fingers, and she tried not to think of the hot blood that flowed there, of how blood looked on the outside of a person as they died -

Instead of slowing down, Dina’s gasps came higher and she continued to rock against Ellie. Ellie leaned back and smoothed down her hair with one hand, letting the thumb of her other hand go to her clit. “Should I keep going?”

“Please,” Dina whimpered, and Ellie saw that her face was wet - and the thought came to her that maybe her own was as well, as she kept moving inside her. “Please don’t stop…” 

Ellie complied immediately, pumping and twisting her fingers, trying to ignore the looming, impending sense of failure that rose up behind her.

It didn’t feel like the carefree lightness of their first time, and Ellie wondered if it ever would. There were so many broken promises now, and they piled up around her and obscured her view until they were all she could see. Something filled Ellie up to her throat, the irrepressible desire to make their future something reachable, to _promise_ to Dina that she had not made a mistake in loving her -

“I’ll find a house for us,” she gasped into Dina’s damp hair, and Dina cried out again. “Outside of Jackson. Just for us.”

The words broke through and now Ellie was babbling and gasping, frantic - she would do anything to help them both climb out of this hell together - 

Dina’s hands scrabbled on Ellie’s back as she moved. “Our baby,” she said, gasping. “If they’re a girl-” and she threw her head back and cried out, and then folded back towards Ellie, gasping desperately - “...Talia.”

Ellie could only gasp out a “Yes” and sink her teeth into Dina’s neck as she thrust harder, and Dina whimpered and cried - “Just like that, like that-”

Ellie licked along her neck and grasped for more empty promises. “We can plant a big garden, who cares about my fucking allergies-” Dina’s laugh turned into a sob of pleasure. “Never go out on goddamn patrol ever again.”

“Ellie, baby, oh my _God_ -”

“Wanna get married?” Ellie gasped and Dina’s back arched and she cried out again. Ellie’s wrist was starting to ache, but she ignored it, just like she ignored the tears that slipped down her face. “I want that, baby, I want forever -”

“Yes,” Dina gasped. “Yes, yes, yes -”

“We can have a big family, whatever you want, however you want it -”

“Fuck, Ellie, I’m coming, I’m coming -” And Dina’s breaths came faster, frantic now.

“I’m here, baby, come for me, I’m here -”

And Dina shook and cried and crashed into her orgasm, gasping and screaming brokenly and chanting Ellie’s name. Ellie’s arm was on fire as she kept up her thrusts, gasping with Dina and talking to her and gentling as she slowly came down, as they rested their foreheads together and panted -

Dazed, Dina pulled her forward for a long, deep kiss. Ellie complied, inhaling deeply through her nose as she let Dina’s tongue into her mouth and felt her shaking hands still on her upper back. She didn’t know how long they kissed, how long she drank Dina in, how long her very pulse seemed to flutter inside Ellie’s body -

Eventually, Ellie gently withdrew to lick her fingers clean. Dina whined at the sight, so Ellie indulged her, leaning forward to alternately slip her tongue and her fingers into Dina’s hot, panting mouth. A new tiredness washed over them both, but the way Dina sucked on her fingers and moaned against her mouth, as her dark eyes flashed, told Ellie that they weren’t quite done yet -

“Need you,” she whispered around her gasps as she tried to catch her breath, pupils blown wide and a flush painted across her cheeks and her nose. “Need you closer, baby.”

And Ellie kissed her chastely, pressing her back into the pillows as she tried to shake some of the soreness out of her dominant hand. She knelt at the juncture of Dina’s thighs and leaned over her, gently propping Dina’s legs up on her shoulders until she was folded in half as much as her belly would allow. Ellie pressed one arm into the pillows behind Dina’s head for balance, and reached between their bodies to slowly slip her fingers back inside Dina again. She was tighter this way, and Dina whimpered as she worked her fingers inside of her.

Ellie slowed and thrust her fingers shallowly for a few minutes, watching Dina’s face carefully - until she felt her open beneath her, and her fingers sank deeper, down to her knuckles, and she leaned forward to lick into Dina’s mouth. Dina hummed and Ellie didn’t move with much intention, just rocked with Dina’s body in gentle waves. She kept her thumb pressed firmly to Dina’s clit, whispering to her how beautiful she was like this, how soft and deep and warm she was…

Dina purred and wrapped her arms around Ellie’s neck and gently carded her fingers through the locks of Ellie’s hair that had come free from her bun. Her fingers ghosted over the small hairs that curled at the base of her neck, and she moved with the soft rhythm of Ellie’s thrusts. She writhed slowly and gasped and whimpered; she kissed the corner of Ellie’s mouth and her jaw and her neck in a mindless, fuzzy haze...

And Dina’s fourth orgasm was a slow, languid thing, coaxed out of her with gentleness and sweet, plying words as Ellie held her open and curled her fingers inside her until her muscles fluttered around her. There was nothing frantic about it, except for the crescendo of Ellie’s name in Dina’s mouth as she came, and the twitch and firing of her muscles around Ellie’s fingers.

And then there was just sweet softness, as all the tension went out of her and Dina gasped quietly, pupils blown and dazed. Ellie smiled down at her and blinked her tears away, pressing a kiss to her mouth and then her forehead. Dina’s panting evened out to slower, deeper breathing, and her hands traced the scars on Ellie’s back - the torn parts that she had cleaned and sewn up and put back together.

Ellie eased Dina’s legs off of her shoulders and rolled to her side, so that they both lay facing each other. Dina was soft and languid and pliant, tiredness starting to overtake her, but she ran a hand along Ellie’s inner thigh and made to touch her - until Ellie caught her in her grasp and shook her head. 

“I’m okay,” Ellie murmured. 

“Babe,” Dina slurred. Her mouth curled into a half-smile, like she was drunk. “You sure?”

“Yeah.” Ellie tried to inject as much softness into her voice as she could, as she leaned over and turned off her bedside lamp. She pulled their blankets up over them and tucked Dina closer to her, curling up in their warm cocoon.

"I love you," Dina breathed into the curve of Ellie's neck. Ellie replied with her mouth pressed against the crown of her head, and Dina’s breathing soon evened out into sleep. 

Ellie fixed the far corner of the room in her gaze: waiting, waiting, waiting. Finally, she slipped her arm out from under Dina’s prone form. She pulled on her discarded sleeping clothes with practiced silence. The bedroom door still creaked as she opened it with a wince, and she crept downstairs, into the blue-black of the night. 

The latches on the windows gleamed in the moonlight, and she grazed her fingers over each one. She did the same for the locks on the doors, the windows, the cracks in the walls, until her fingers had ghosted over every entryway and exit, real and imagined, mundane and catastrophized.

She stood in the middle of the bare living room, as the silence pressed around her. It contained everything and nothing, and everything and nothing was what she would have. 

Dina’s taste still lingered in her mouth, and Ellie thought of all the ways that even love would fail to save her.

The glass glared, the cottage creaked, and Ellie approached the windows and started all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s a bit of an anachronism here, since _Asteriornis maastrichtensis_ wasn’t [discovered and named until 2019](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2096-0). But it’s a [resilient little thing](https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2020/0318/66-million-year-old-wonderchicken-offers-lesson-in-resilience) and I thought it would fit well with a story about Ellie, so there’s my rationale for my imperfect timeline.
> 
> Cheers, y'all!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dina - the consummate survivor, the compass, the North star - always points home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, I wrote more Smut With Feelings. There's some praise kink if you squint.
> 
> Y'all can thank user dpdb for inspiring this, thanks to a comment they left on [Chapter 3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26551612/chapters/65524708) of this work.

Dina pressed the column of her spine against the couch and waited. And waited, and waited, and waited.

Jesse’s voice was muffled through the door, but she thought she recognized his steady knock anyways, and her heart beat in her throat as she wrenched the chair out of the double doors with a scrape.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” 

Jesse’s hug was solid and quick before he turned back to help Tommy in, who greeted her with a jarring smile, and Dina quickly directed him to sit down.

It was misting outside, and Ellie stood away from the door, maybe a good ten feet back. She was thrown into shadow, almost blending in with the darkening, flooded street behind her - but Dina could see that she was staring down at her shoes.

“Ellie,” she said, striding out to meet her, eyes darting around for threats. Ellie didn’t look up as Dina reached for her. “Baby, come inside.” And Ellie’s hand was cold and clammy in hers, but she followed without a fight. 

Once inside, Jesse barricaded the door again, and Dina kept Ellie’s hand folded in hers, running her thumb over her knuckles, feeling her shake minutely.

Jesse grasped the space of conversation immediately. “We should bed down for the night,” he said, looking around at all of them. “We can make a plan for leaving in the morning.”

“I don’t disagree with that,” Tommy muttered, rolling his shoulders and wincing. Jesse glanced down at the floor, and Dina felt Ellie lean slightly against her.

Tommy set his pack down and groaned, taking the weight off of his feet, and Dina turned to Ellie, who still stared down at the floor. Dina touched her cheek lightly. “Go upstairs, okay? I’ll meet you there soon.” Ellie’s hands still shook as Dina let go of them, and she watched her walk through the dimly-lit lobby.

And then she pulled Jesse aside, trying to ignore the blood on his hands and shirt collar. “Are you okay?”

She had dragged him to a room off of the lobby, and she watched him set his pack down and ease onto a couch. “I’ve had worse.”

“Jesse-”

He raised his hands, placating. “We got what we were looking for,” he said evenly.

Dina winced and rubbed at her belly, sitting down. The feeling of Ellie’s hands shaking in hers still fluttered alongside her pulse. “We can’t do this anymore.”

And it felt like a betrayal, to finally voice it - but Dina couldn’t stop herself. “I wish we’d never left. We should have stayed in Jackson. You didn’t need to come out here, you didn’t need to leave your parents -”

“I think they’d be surprised if I hadn’t gone,” Jesse replied.

“Please don’t tell me you’ve done worse.”

“Then I won’t tell you.”

The ease with which they slipped back into their old teasing was jarring to Dina, and she buried her face in her hands and sighed.

“Are you okay?”

And Dina’s voice crowded up at the back of her throat, and burst forth in cracks and gasps. “I feel like I don’t know who she _is_ anymore…” She stared down at her hands.

“I think you probably know her better than she knows herself,” Jesse replied. “Especially right now.” He leaned against her slightly, and she pressed back, taking a deep breath. “And she’ll need you when we get back to Jackson.”

“I think we’ll all need each other.”

They lapsed into silence, and the truth and magnitude of Dina’s words settled around her. She felt out their space together, what they had done and what they were bound to do.

“I don’t hate you for getting me pregnant.”

Jesse sighed. “That’s probably more than I deserve,” he replied - his words curling with what she knew was a smile - and Dina chuckled, raising her face from her hands.

“I think we’re both to blame for this one.”

“I’ll take that.”

Dina eased to her feet, and took Jesse’s hand in her own. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said, squeezing firmly.

“Me too.”

Tommy was sprawled out on a couch in the lobby as Dina left. She checked the barricade one more time, and then padded upstairs to where Ellie waited for her. 

The door was cracked open, and she eased through to find Ellie hunched on their makeshift bed, pack and rain slicker discarded, small in the dim light.

“Hey, baby,” Dina murmured, sidling into the room. When Ellie didn’t look up, Dina brushed her fingertips against the base of her neck, cataloging a fresh scrape. “How’s your back feeling?” She winced internally at her own deflection, medically-necessary though it was. 

“It’s okay,” Ellie replied, a quaver in her voice.

Dina sat down slowly. “Can I take a look?”

Ellie nodded, and Dina gently eased her shirt off, slowing as she peeled it away from new scrapes and reopened wounds. She checked the sutures she had put in the previous night, prodding gently for heat and swelling. Ellie’s shoulders lifted as she drew a long, shaking breath, and on her exhale Dina leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to the top of her spine.

There was still a sliver of soap left over. Ellie held her breath at the sting as Dina lathered the margins of her new scrapes, and Dina whispered to her, telling her where she was going and what she would do next the best she could.

Tiredness overtook Dina as she set the water and cloth aside and removed her own top, pressing her bare chest gently along the curve of Ellie’s back, resting her cheek against Ellie’s shoulder and listening to her heart. 

It felt selfish, to miss being skin-to-skin with her, closer than anything - but she also thrummed with a quiet desperation to take every chance she could. Dina exhaled and pressed a soft, meandering line of chaste kisses along Ellie's shoulder.

“We should rest,” she murmured, although some part of her held Ellie closer, not wanting to let go, even in sleep.

As if sensing her reluctance, Ellie turned in her arms and gently pressed Dina down until her warm weight settled on top of her, and her arms bracketed Dina’s shoulders. Dina cradled Ellie’s face in her palms, kissing her temple and her cheek and her forehead and ghosting over the bruises and cuts that littered her skin.

 _Come home with me_ , Dina thought, with her whole body, with her very being - almost as if she thought it hard enough, she could convince Ellie to drop this futile task, to leave this awful place.

When Ellie’s mouth found hers, their kiss was a gentle thing, full and slow and soft. Dina arched and pressed them flush together, lazily winding her arms around Ellie’s shoulders, exhaling through her nose and closing her eyes. 

Dina’s fingertips played along Ellie’s jaw, soon replaced by her lips, which curled into a smile as Ellie mouthed down her neck - gentling over bruised areas and lathing over freckles and scars and stretch marks with her tongue. 

Ellie’s hands stumbled over Dina’s belt until Dina reached down to help her, throwing it aside. Dina lifted her hips as Ellie helped her out of her jeans and underwear, murmuring appreciatively about how beautiful Dina was as her legs fell open. Ellie dropped kisses down onto her knees and inner thighs.

Dina expected Ellie to be rough and frantic, like when they were on their way to Seattle - but something in her seemed resigned and slow. She dragged her fingertips over the scar on Dina’s hip, almost wistfully, and then seemed to come back to herself as Dina’s hand joined hers.

And then Ellie’s clothes were off too and they were kissing again, sweet and languid, letting the rolling waves of their bodies meet without any real intention. Dina tangled her fingers in Ellie’s hair and Ellie drifted down Dina’s body, kissed her collarbones and her breasts and her sternum and her belly. 

It truly hadn’t been that long, but it still felt like a particular lifetime since Ellie had touched her like this, and Dina had to suppress a loud groan when Ellie held Dina’s thighs open with her palms and took her clit into her mouth. Dina whimpered and gasped into her own palm and wondered for the thousandth time at the gentleness in Ellie’s strong, deft hands. 

Ellie shifted around and Dina knew she was lining up to enter her, and she stopped her with a whine, sitting up on her elbows. “Not yet,” she gasped, taking Ellie’s hand in her own. “Not yet, baby. C’mere.”

Ellie let Dina press her down, and spread her legs, and map along her body with her mouth, and Dina was so thankful for their stolen time, brief as it was. 

Ellie’s hands were shaking as they carded through Dina’s hair, gathering it to one side and letting it fall against her hip, brushing strands behind her ear, tracing her jaw as it worked. Ellie whimpered with soft, high-pitched sounds and was soon drawing firm circles on Dina’s upper back as she gasped and convulsed, hips rocking against Dina’s mouth. She shuddered and cried Dina’s name softly and bent forward to bury her face against Dina’s hair, breathing hard against her scalp -

Ellie pulled Dina up to her mouth again, and Dina buzzed at the taste of both herself and Ellie on her tongue.

And then Ellie gently pressed her down and straddled her hips, and Dina’s fingers found her warm and wet and wanting. Ellie eased down onto her slowly, her brows wrinkled in concentration and then opening with a stumbling, shaking gasp as she relaxed.

But she didn’t start moving. Instead, she supported herself with one arm and reached down between their bodies with the other. It took Dina a second to understand her intentions, but then she threw a leg over Ellie’s hip, opening herself up - and Dina felt Ellie’s long fingers reach up inside her as sweet pressure filled her and she bit her lip and gasped -

It took some coordinating until they finally slotted together, legs overlapping, breathing against each other’s skin. Dina tangled her free hand in Ellie’s hair and whined as they settled against each other, everything wet and tight and soft -

And then Ellie rocked her hips experimentally, and she slid along Dina’s fingers and Dina slid along hers, and Ellie curled them and caught the sensitive ridges of her flesh and Dina cried out -

Ellie slowed immediately, as Dina writhed beneath her. “Good?” she murmured, eyes searching Dina’s - and Dina’s breathed reply of “Yeah” made her brows knit together.

“Good,” Ellie whispered, barely a breath, as she turned her head to press a chaste kiss to the corner of Dina’s mouth, as she started to move again.

Ellie set a slow, measured pace for them both, one that Dina was thankful for - slow enough so that their lips could meet and they could press their foreheads together and talk to each other as they made love. Ellie’s free arm was pressed right behind Dina’s head and she bumped up against it with their thrusts, and Dina felt trapped in the best way, whimpers rising out of her throat in time with their movements, gasping as Ellie thumbed her clit -

“Love you like this,” Ellie murmured, and Dina hummed in reply. “Kept thinking about you when I was out there -”

Dina knew that was partially a lie, but she let it go, focusing on the convulsing warmth around her fingers. “Missed you so much,” she whispered against Ellie’s cheek. “Missed you inside me.”

“I know, baby,” Ellie murmured, pressing another line of wet kisses along Dina’s neck. “This is good for you?” And Dina saw worry etched in the lines on Ellie's forehead, and she rushed to placate her, ignoring the fact that Ellie had asked her essentially the same question twice -

“I love it,” she gasped. “I love you.”

Ellie crooked her fingers inside Dina and Dina mirrored her, watching her cry out in response - and Dina thought she would collapse and combust, thought this was what it was like to die, or to see the beginning of the universe, as she rocked inside Ellie and Ellie rocked inside her -

Unbidden, Dina thought of all the times that she had watched Ellie leave, and yet - maybe this would be the thing to make her stay, maybe this would change her, this would make Ellie realize that she was Dina’s -

She didn’t belong to this cold, dark city and she didn’t belong to this tall, blonde woman and she didn’t belong to this broken, bleeding dead man - she belonged to Dina, and here was her proof, with how they had found each other and how perfectly they fit together and how beautiful and shining the love they made was, even in this hell -

 _Come home with me_.

Dina wanted to say it, but her fear wrapped itself around her throat, so instead she whispered into Ellie’s ear about all the ways she wanted to take her and be taken in return; about how warm and wet and deep she was; how she deserved to come because she was so good and so, so loved -

And Dina tried not to think of Nora, and how Ellie’s hands shook in hers, and half-truths, and lies - but Ellie whimpered and spasmed around her all the same.

They still moved slower than usual, but somehow everything was hotter than when they went at each other with teeth and fire and passion. The feeling that they were so in-sync, that they were one and the same - it made Dina that much wetter, it made her all the more desperate, even as she moved languidly with Ellie’s rhythm -

And Dina’s breath hitched and she gasped against Ellie’s ear - she wouldn’t say it, but she would get as close as she could, as close as she _dared_ -

“Come with me,” she whispered against Ellie’s ear, and Ellie whimpered and shook and cried, and Dina’s body seized too even as she bit her lip to try to keep her focus - “Come with me, baby, please -” 

Ellie’s breath finally hitched and she let out a strangled, gasping moan against Dina’s neck - her shoulders shuddered, and she was wracked with heaving gasps, and Dina breathed hard with her - one hand still in her hair and the other still between her legs, giving her a way to ride it out, and her mouth was next to her ear, coaxing her along with soft words -

And then Dina’s own orgasm was a blur, helped along by Ellie’s gasps and low voice in her ear. One second she was watching Ellie shudder and cry out above her, cradled and open in her warmth - and the next the floor had dropped out from under her and all Dina could do was hang on, cling to Ellie as she cried her name and tried to take her deeper -

And Ellie collapsed on top of her, arms shaking as she gulped down air, buried against the crook of Dina’s neck. Dina closed her eyes and breathed with her, and waited for the fear in her to abate, to wash away in their afterglow. 

It didn’t.

Dina wondered when it would leave her once and for all, when she would be able to love Ellie without wondering who she was.

Ellie withdrew her fingers gently, and Dina whimpered at the loss of contact, as Ellie shushed her with a line of chaste kisses from her cheek down to her mouth. Dina let her head tip backwards, until it was resting over the edge of their makeshift bed, and tried to slow her breathing. Ellie rested her forehead against Dina’s chest and breathed there, as Dina traced the skin at the base of Ellie’s neck with both hands, and tangled her fingers in her damp hair. 

And then Ellie breathed unevenly, her inhales too short for her long, shaking exhales. Some measure of nausea still twisted in Dina’s gut, and she tried to tamp it down again -

Ellie gasped and a strangled sound left her throat, and Dina threaded her fingers through her hair and made shushing sounds. She brushed her fingers along Ellie’s hot, damp cheek.

“It’s okay, baby,” she murmured. “I’ve got you, it’s okay…” But Ellie sobbed all the harder, the side of her face pressed above Dina’s heart, and Dina wound her arms around Ellie’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head -

“I killed them,” she gasped, and Dina rocked side-to-side with her, as if the words would slough off of them as she kept moving. “I killed them all -” Her face contorted and she made to withdraw, to turn away, but Dina threaded the fingers of one hand through Ellie’s, and pressed them over her chest -

“Stay with me, baby,” she whispered against Ellie’s hair. “I love you so much, stay with me -”

It had to be enough - it _had_ to. But Dina wondered if she even believed herself.

She would have offered her body all over again, but she could tell that Ellie had already gone to some different place, where Dina’s warmth couldn’t reach her. In any case, a chill had crept into the room, and Ellie shivered - and so they slowly pulled their clothes back on, and curled back together underneath a blanket.

Dina fell into a strange, gray limbo, where her nausea sometimes curled its tendrils over her and she whimpered and rolled away - and she drifted to and from consciousness, brain fighting her body’s desire for sleep. 

Ellie was solid warmth next to her, until she wasn’t - and Dina was sluggish in sleep but she knew she had to follow her, she had to stop her, she had to bring her back -

When Dina’s eyes blinked open, Ellie was gone.

Nausea rose in her stomach again and she shuddered, gathering her legs underneath her shakily. It was quiet. It was so, so quiet.

Dina palmed her knife and tried to take solace in its familiar weight in her hand. She took deep, steady breaths like Talia had taught her, feeling the oxygen reach all the way down to her toes and her fingertips. She made it a few steps out of the room before she vomited.

She vomited again when she saw Jesse and Tommy, and curled in on herself and moaned in horror. Her knife was slick in her grip and no, _no_ , they were supposed to go home together, it wasn’t supposed to be like this, she had _touched_ Jesse just hours ago -

And somewhere below her she heard thumps and crashes and screams and she _knew_.

She tried doors and hallways and growled and screamed at deadends and locks that wouldn’t budge, and hot tears fell from the corners of her eyes as she descended into darkness - listening for those yells and thumps and scrapes -

She had known this was coming, from the day they reached Seattle, from the moment she cupped Ellie’s cheek in her hand and swore to her - this was their path, this blood and death, and maybe she had followed so willingly because she thought that this was where love should take her - towards vengeance. And it would wipe clean the slate of their pain -

But all the anger they mustered could not drive it away - it would not make Jesse or Tommy get up, it would not make Joel or Talia come back. It was not some grand panacea that would save them and absolve them. 

There was nothing but red here, on the walls and the floors in both light and blood, but Dina was close now - there was still movement up ahead, down a hallway. The red was real, not simply in her mind, and it bathed and hid terrors in flickering light. 

She grit her teeth. They would go home - that was where their love belonged. Even if it was the last thing she ever did, they would go home.

Dina hefted her knife in her hand and rounded the corner. Hell was upon her, and she rose to meet it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I absolutely loved writing Jesse and Dina's interactions in this chapter. I have a whole "Jesse lives" AU in mind that I've started to plan, and writing these two made me want to drop everything and start writing it immediately. One thing at a time...


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love is like a flower blooming in the spring - winter will freeze it and summer will dry it out, but still it comes back, again and again and again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [dpdb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dpdb/pseuds/dpdb) requested some soft, stolen Ellie/Dina moments on the way to Seattle. Also, I love writing my super detailed slow emotional things, but I also love gritty survival with soft moments sprinkled throughout (and, objectively, I need to practice writing action). So, here we are.
> 
> There's still angst - but maybe, like, less than my average? Also I play fast and loose with the timeline of Seattle Day 1, and also geography.

The snow is thick and wet and cold, and sneaks down Dina’s collar and into the space between her gloves and her coat. It sticks to her eyelashes and glitters in her vision, everywhere and frustrating. She buries her nose against Ellie’s shoulder and tightens her grip on her jacket and thinks about the heat that thrums underneath. Her throat aches from the cold and exertion, and she wants to nudge Ellie to seek shelter again. But the words die, pained and small, in her throat.

But maybe her persistent ushering did something, because at the next abandoned cluster of buildings, the vigilant rod that is Ellie’s spine slouches against Dina. Dina can tell from Ellie’s quick glances and the way her teeth worry at her lower lip that she’s evaluating the structures around them, for anything that can shelter them through the night.

Dina takes a deep breath and rubs a hand against Ellie’s side, through her coat, in wordless encouragement. She peers around too, squinting against the wind that has picked up, that tears at her eyes and her face -

“There?!”

She has to yell over the gale, but she points and it gets the message across - there is a structure looming at them in the blizzard, barely visible, and Ellie steers Shimmer towards it.

It takes them a few minutes of circling to find a way in, a few minutes of fervent prayer from Dina and low, consistent cursing from Ellie - but they finally find their way to a garage that, mercifully, they can open manually.

Ellie stumbles off of Shimmer and Dina winces as her feet collide with the concrete. They strip Shimmer of her tack and dry her off as best they can, despite their stiff and clumsy fingers.

“Come on,” Ellie whispers once they’re finished. “We gotta check the house.” Dina’s stiff muscles ache and groan and she takes deep, cold breaths down to her toes and nods.

The house is clear and some of the vigilance drops from Dina’s shoulders, but she watches Ellie continue to look around. She checks and re-checks windows and doors, and when she does a third pass through what used to be a living room, Dina jokes - “Don’t think it’ll be unlocked on the third try” - and Ellie sends her a glare.

Dina quails immediately. She wants to reach out and touch Ellie, to calm some of her freneticism instead of evading - but Ellie has already removed her pack and is unpacking whatever they will need for the night.

So Dina sits down and joins her, feeling out their space together. She shivers involuntarily - her beanie is soaked through from the snow, and she winces and wonders aloud if she’ll ever gain feeling in her ears ever again. She hears Ellie from somewhere behind her, where she’s gone to look out a window - but her footsteps approach Dina and then Ellie kneels in front of her, removing her gloves.

Dina wants to ask why, but then Ellie cups her fingers over Dina’s ears and her fingers are cold too and Dina hisses - but the blood running under them warms up soon enough, and soon Ellie draws small circles on Dina’s earlobes with her thumbs.

“Better?”

“Yeah.” Dina wants to tell her that she could fall asleep here, just like this. Instead, she catches Ellie’s hands in her own as she pulls away. “I’m sorry.”

Ellie nods. “I know.”

They strip off their wet clothing, hanging it over furniture in some small hope that it will dry a little overnight. Dina counts her bullets - a meditative exercise, that slows her mind and helps her feel safer - and then she closes her eyes and prays for a safe night. 

Dinner is something canned and quick. Immediately after, Dina takes inventory, a distraction from something that roils in her stomach. She does some calculations and projects that they can go another week or so on their current stores. The thought doesn’t make her feel any better - it just sits with her, another companion of information that she must track in order to maintain their survival.

Ellie tells Dina to rest so that she can take first watch, so Dina curls up under an old blanket and pillows her head against one of Ellie’s shirts and tries to scrub her mind of the death and blood they’ve seen that day. She thinks of Talia, and their journey north, into the cold but towards safety, towards Jackson, towards Ellie -

When Dina wakes, it’s still dark outside, and she squints at her watch to see that they’re into the early hours of the morning. Ellie is sitting up beside her on the couch, relaxed and heavy in sleep, clearly having dozed off. Dina eases herself into a standing position and gently places the blanket over her, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Ellie murmurs absently in her sleep.

Dina is almost done making breakfast when Ellie starts and jerks awake, gasping. Dina’s hand on her knee seems to do a little to calm her. “Sorry,” she murmurs, wiping at her forehead. “Sorry, I fell asleep…”

“And you should have. We were out for hours yesterday. The storm’s died down a little though.” 

Ellie sits down on the floor with her, back pressed against the couch, and Dina leans over and kisses her cheek, testing the waters. When Ellie doesn’t pull away, Dina hums and rubs her back. 

After two bites of oatmeal, Ellie excuses herself to go check on Shimmer. Dina has packed up their leftovers and removed all visible signs that they were there by the time she returns.

They are moving slower than they had planned, and it clearly gets to Ellie. She is on high alert more often than not, as if enemies could be behind any corner. And yet, there’s a tedium to things that Dina doesn’t want to voice - when they aren’t fighting for their lives, the habits that come with survival become flat and mind-numbing.

Dina starts kissing Ellie goodnight by the time they cross into Idaho. Before, Ellie’s anger had felt like a barrier to Dina, and she had restrained herself. But now she hates the sight of the worry lines between Ellie’s brows, cast darker and deeper in the light of the fire. Sometimes she can smooth it over with touch - with a hand on Ellie’s knee, or a kiss against her shoulder. But there’s something sweet and casual about kissing her goodnight, that implies a permanence between them that Dina craves. 

The Idaho winter is crude and cruel, somehow deeper and darker than Jackson’s - but in the morning the sun sparkles off of the white-capped peaks that surround them, and powdery snow drifts over them like sugar. It settles on Ellie’s hair and it makes Dina think of gingerbread, something that she can’t help but remind Ellie of for the solid week of good weather that they experience. 

Ellie chides her from her position on Shimmer, but she can’t wriggle away from the arms that Dina firms around her waist as she buries her nose against her neck, voice light and sing-song: “My gingerbread, my sweet gingerbread, sweet sweet sweet -”

Ellie accepts her playfulness but is hardly playful in return, and Dina soon learns not to let it get to her, when Ellie’s mind is somewhere else. She tries not to worry that Ellie’s mind is _always_ somewhere else.

They find a cabin one evening, abandoned and set away from the road. It’s cold and dark, but columns of dark pine trees that surround them provide good cover. A stream gurgles nearby, frozen over, and Dina breaks its icy shell and refills their canteens. Inside, by the light of an oil lamp, she finds Ellie pouring over papers - their own map, but also one that was pinned to the cabin wall and left there.

“Looks like infected hotspots,” Ellie replies to the silent question that is Dina’s hand on her back. “At least whoever lived here before knew what they were doing.” She cross-references between their map and the cabin’s, adding notes to theirs as she goes. 

Dina’s brain feels like it’s moving in slow motion - she knows she should have something clever to say or ask about the new information they’ve just acquired, but she can’t bring herself to summon the energy to do so. Dina wants to lay down and rest her eyes immediately after dinner, but she tries to avoid falling asleep, catching herself each time she drifts off. 

The sky outside deepens to a deep, dark blue and then finally black. The light of the oil lamp almost makes things cozy, casting the room around them in a soft, gold sheen. Dina watches Ellie think, watches her mutter to herself, biting her fingernails from time to time.

Dina wishes they were back in Jackson, wishes Ellie was looking over new routes for patrols, wishes she could rub Ellie’s arm and kiss the back of her neck and tug her up to their bed. She’d be playful, whining and pleading until Ellie relented - fixing her in a frustrated stare that was given away by her crooked half-smile, and taking her hand nonetheless. 

They’d get wrapped up in each other in their bed, teasing the other about their day or a joke Dina had tried to tell earlier. And before Ellie would turn off her bedside lamp and plunge them into darkness, she would tip Dina’s jaw up and capture Dina’s lips in hers, tender and soft. 

But that is so, so far away, and all Dina can do now is watch Ellie frown and sigh. She pushes herself to a standing position, although her body and mind protest, and she touches Ellie’s shoulder. 

“You should lay down, El,” Dina murmurs.

“Almost done,” Ellie replies without looking up, and a new tiredness washes over Dina. So she pillows her head with her pack and curls up, and drifts off to the sight of Ellie thinking and hurting - body wrapped in soft light and mind wrapped in darkness.

* * *

Winter eases somewhat as they move through Idaho, a welcome phenomenon except for the advent of mud season. Ellie is careful, letting Shimmer pick her way along soft, loamy ground where the snow has melted, or sometimes sticking to higher altitudes when valleys at lower elevations are washed out completely. 

The air is crisp without being painful and Dina breathes it in greedily, grateful to at least start leaving behind winter - the season of overworn and heavy clothing, dried with sweat, simultaneously uncomfortably hot and confined but also cold and thin. She slips her bare hands into Ellie’s pockets and hums absently, trying to ignore the pervasive growl in her belly.

She had vomited again that morning, overcome in a swirling sea of nausea, and she came to with Ellie wiping sweat from her forehead. The thought of food made her gorge rise again, so she grit her teeth and urged them to continue.

Now, Dina leans against Ellie’s upper back, listening to the thrum of her heart and tracing the jagged, mountainous horizon with her eye. Maybe if she drinks in enough of the beauty that blooms around her, she’ll be able to ignore the hunger that claws at her stomach. 

They trap a rabbit around lunchtime, and Ellie sets about skinning and cleaning it while Dina brushes Shimmer. She murmurs to the mare, working over sweat marks on her back and belly, and checking for sores on her skin and mouth and cracks in her hooves. Shimmer is a hardy little thing, and she nuzzles Dina’s pockets for treats, snorting when Dina comes up empty-handed.

The rabbit is on a spit by the time she returns, over a fire that is just starting to crackle. Ellie has her journal out and is drawing something intently; Dina settles beside her and sees her diagraming something.

She assumes correctly that Ellie can feel her looking - after a beat Ellie points her pen up and looks skyward. “Not that we’d need to, since we have a map,” she starts. “But we could navigate using the stars, if we wanted.”

“Spooky,” Dina murmurs. “You down for some nighttime travel?”

“Not really,” Ellie replies. “But, like, last resort.”

“Last resort,” Dina repeats, leaning against Ellie’s shoulder. “How would we do it?”

Ellie inhales and straightens up, like she’s preparing some long-winded explanation. “Well, Seattle is…” She glances around and back at the sky briefly, as if to get her bearings, and then points with her pen to the left, across Dina’s body. “Northwest. So we’d have to find the North Star, which is pretty easy, and then we could find our latitude, and _then_ we can find south using Orion, and then we just…” She waves her hand that holds the pen absently. “Make an educated guess.”

“Fancy,” Dina says, eyebrows raised.

“Not really,” Ellie replies, grinning in that lopsided, bashful way. “Just be glad we aren’t doing marine navigation. Shit gets _way_ more complicated then.”

“Well I’ll know who to ask next time I’m traveling somewhere by boat,” Dina says, resting back on her hands. A breeze picks at them, pulling at their hair - Ellie’s half-updo is coming down, and Dina reaches up to brush a few loose locks behind her ear.

“You’d be so lost without me,” Ellie chides, capturing Dina’s hand as she pulls away. She presses her lips to Dina’s knuckles, and Dina shivers pleasantly - the number of times that Ellie’s put her lips against Dina’s skin, other than to kiss her mouth, can still be counted on just one hand.

“Good thing I’ve got no plans to leave you,” Dina murmurs, and she leans closer and kisses Ellie’s temple, feeling her smile against the back of her hand. Dina tries to memorize Ellie’s scent, the feel of her mouth on her skin, the slow cadence of her breathing.

Barely a day passes before Dina is scrambling for those memories already.

A scream bubbles up in her throat as she watches Ellie go down in front of her, scurrying to try to evade the bloater. It bears down on Ellie with a roar and Dina _runs_. She hefts her machete - still slick with the blood from the downed clickers that twitch behind her - and brings it down in one smooth, strong motion. 

It cleaves into the bloater’s shoulder, and the bloater’s roar blends with Ellie’s scream and with Dina’s shriek; she wrenches the machete free and her arms burn and she swings again, and the machete makes contact with thick, fungal skin and the soft flesh beneath. Dina yanks it back again and now the bloater has turned on her, massive and _fast_ and Dina shifts her weight back and prepares to run - 

And then the bloater’s head explodes, sickening and wet, and Ellie is somehow on her feet, emptying the clip of her pistol into its torso.

It looms and sways and Dina swears she can feel the ground shake when it falls, but then Ellie falls too and it’s all Dina can think about.

Ellie cowers and pants and rapidly pats her own body - searching, searching, searching for things that are wrong and things that are out of place and things that are open when they shouldn’t be -

Dina throws the machete aside and squats down to fill Ellie’s vision and makes Ellie look at her, framing her face while Ellie grips at her wrists. There is blood on Ellie, everywhere - it’s not hers, but it covers her face and her eyes are wide and wild and her mouth is turned down into a grimace. The whites of her eyes and her teeth are stark against her flesh -

“Shhh, shhh.” Dina folds Ellie against her, feels her crimson skin stick in the curve of her neck, and tries to inject as much calm into her voice as she can. There’s hot wetness on her neck, blood or tears or both, and she firms one arm around Ellie’s shoulders and holds her close as best she can.

“Are you hurt?” Ellie’s voice shakes and stammers, and Dina shakes her head against Ellie’s shoulder. She starts to pull away - she wants to check Ellie for injuries but she also waits for the telltale shrieks of approaching infected - but Ellie tightens her grip and holds Dina closer.

“Ellie,” Dina whispers with urgency. “Baby, we need to move -”

And Ellie seems to come back to herself, releasing Dina and gingerly pushing herself into a standing position. Dina leads her outside and whistles for Shimmer, who had spooked and startled at the sounds of combat. 

The mare comes to them with a willing obedience that surprises Dina, but she pushes the thought from her mind and mounts up, pulling Ellie up behind her. She does not look back at the abandoned warehouse as she rides, mentally striking it from her list of _possible shelters_ for the night. She pushes Shimmer upriver, towards the dark clumps of trees on the slope above them, all the better for a high vantage point.

Ellie’s hands shake and shake and shake, and Dina knows the ice cold mountain runoff isn’t helping, but she rubs at Ellie’s skin anyways until the water washes the blood away. She dabs at Ellie’s face with a wet rag and then sits her down and builds a fire.

There’s still rabbit left over, which Dina nibbles on and hopes her stomach tolerates. Ellie’s eyes are far away, as she robotically brings food to her mouth. 

For once, Ellie lays down with her on the sleeping roll. Dina doesn’t know if it’s the brush with death or sheer exhaustion, but regardless she is glad for Ellie’s arms around her, glad that her hands have stopped shaking.

“Tell me about New Mexico.”

Ellie’s voice quivers and shakes, and Dina knows that she will exclude all the pain and torment, the sickening horror that came with making a home somewhere and then letting it go because it could not be a home anymore. She rolls over in Ellie’s arms and tangles her fingers in her hair and whispers against her neck.

She weaves stories of beauty, of the sun hitting sandstone and alighting it in oranges and reds. Of tiny, bright flowers growing where a single drop of water lands. Of life that clings to the world harder than anything else, that reaches into the dry dirt and creates sanctuary where there is none.

And it doesn’t feel like a lie, or omission. It feels like a choice, to acknowledge the pain of the world and still give space to the good. It feels like she and Ellie exist in a little bubble, and for a moment, all the horror and pain of the world can’t reach them.

Her own storytelling makes her start to drift off, and she fights it, but soon she is asleep, and at least Ellie smiles in her dreams.

* * *

Dina wakes with a gasp, and Ellie is already on her feet, burying what remains of their fire.

“Did you sleep?” Dina’s voice is scratchy and rough.

Ellie doesn’t answer - maybe she pretends not to hear - so Dina gathers her wits as best she can and sets about rolling up her sleeping roll and making their camp look a little less lived in.

Oregon still stubbornly clings to winter, frigid and powdery and cold. Spring is so close that Dina can almost taste it - she can see it in the patches of loam and mud that peek through the snow; in the new green covered by surprising, fresh white; in the breeze that is less chilled and more gentle than what she’s felt since leaving Jackson.

Dina sips on her water and watches Ellie, who absently chews on a granola bar while supporting the map on splayed fingers, leaning in close to study their route.

“Think we can make it to Bend today, if we push ourselves,” Ellie says, as if they haven’t been pushing themselves already. “If not, Hampton would still be good…” She trails off and puts the map away, and walks over to help Dina tack up Shimmer. 

Ellie’s gathered the reins in her hand and has her left foot in the stirrup when Dina puts a hand on her shoulder and stops her. Ellie looks back at her in wild concern, but Dina just licks her thumb and rubs it against Ellie’s jaw until a smudge of dirt there disappears. Ellie’s eyes are playful when they find hers.

“Thanks, baby.”

The term of endearment is new, and it still makes Dina’s stomach flip when she hears it, as she watches Ellie’s eyes soften and her mouth curl up. With strength that still surprises Dina, Ellie pulls her up behind Shimmer, and Dina winds her arms around Ellie’s waist.

For once, they have a relatively uneventful day. The route to Bend is long and flat and sparse, and while Dina feels exposed and wary most of the while, she appreciates the convenient vantage they have on clusters of infected that wait for them. There’s something satisfying about dismounting from Shimmer, bracing her hunting rifle against the hood of a rusted, broken-down car, and sighting runners clear down her scope. 

They sprint at her when she fires, of course, all chaos and vicious feral fight - but her shots are clear and she takes most down with ease. Ellie is beside her to pick up her slack, smooth and efficient and calm. Dina tries to make a competition out of it once, but backtracks at Ellie’s drawn expression. 

Still, Ellie threads her fingers through Dina’s, walking hand-in-hand to give Shimmer a break, and Route-20 slowly recedes under their feet.

Their luck continues as they reach Bend and find a boarded up, single-floor house in which they can rest for the night. They clear it, and Dina finds, of all things, a bedroom.

She peeks out into the hall - Ellie is clearing the kitchen, cursing at what she does or doesn’t find - and then back in. The windows in this room, like all the others, are boarded up, so Dina takes a minute and sits down. The mattress dips under her weight, and something in her that’s been holding on for so long lets go.

Later, Ellie tells her that she found Dina fully asleep in that bed, curled on her side and dead to the world. A few hours later, Dina wakes up in Ellie’s arms just as it’s getting dark. Ellie is murmuring that she needs to eat something, and Dina groggily nods her assent.

There’s no working electricity, of course, so they build a fire in the living room, low to the ground and away from the windows. Dinner is meager, and afterwards Ellie pulls out one of her older guns and assesses it for cracks and water damage. Dina sharpens her knife for a few minutes, but eventually leans against Ellie’s shoulder - Ellie lets her - and watches her deft hands work over the gun. She thinks she can fall asleep like this, to the sound of Ellie’s assured, practiced movements.

They decide not to pull back the sheets, but they do lay down together. Dina takes off her shoes and her jacket and drinks in the sliver of normalcy that surrounds them. Ellie copies her - after closing the door and locking it - and lays on her side, one arm supporting her head as she looks down at Dina. It feels exposed and intimate in a new way, and it makes Dina blush. 

“What’re you thinking about?” Dina whispers, and Ellie fixes a curl of her hair behind her ear. She is backlit by the oil lamp on the bedside table behind her, but Dina can still see pain behind Ellie’s eyes, pain that’s been there for days, inscribed in worry lines that won’t relax. She wants to take that pain away, to kiss it clean and kiss it gone.

“Jackson,” Ellie lies, and Dina just nods. 

“What do you want to do when we get back?” Dina queries, and she watches Ellie’s brows pinch together, and knows that Ellie hasn’t thought that far ahead. She thinks about the movie that Ellie had planned to watch with Joel, and wonders if it’s a dark stain to her now, something she’ll never want to touch again.

“I might have to move out of my place.” Ellie’s gaze is far away and her voice is small, as small as the future that Dina knows she sees. She thinks she will go home and things will still be terrible. 

Dina won’t stand for that. She smooths Ellie’s hair and draws her gaze back down. “You could move in with me.”

Something cracks in Ellie’s composure then, as if this is information that she had never considered before. It’s a sign of how seriously she takes Dina’s statement that she doesn’t make a joke. “Really?”

Dina’s “Yeah” is simple and confident. She then holds Ellie’s gaze for longer than she thinks is possible - until Ellie cups her cheek and leans over to cover Dina’s mouth with hers. Dina sighs into their kiss, fingers winding through Ellie’s hair as she scoots closer so that the whole front of her body is touching Ellie. 

Dina opens her mouth and inhales through her nose as Ellie tilts her head and kisses her deeper. Her weight is warm and heavy on top of Dina and she writhes, just to push up against it and make sure Ellie’s real. In response, Ellie cups Dina’s thigh with a hand and hooks Dina’s leg over her hip and rocks forward, so that they meet at the juncture of their legs, and Dina gasps at the friction and heat that rises between them -

If the world were unfair, here would be where there’s a _crash_ from the kitchen, from hunters or infected, and their soft, sweet moment is wrenched apart -

But the world isn’t unfair, it just _is_ \- and sometimes things just work out - and Ellie kisses Dina’s belly and eases her jeans down, and tells her how beautiful and warm and soft she is, and then how amazing it feels being inside her, and Dina cries into her palm and then cries into Ellie’s mouth as she comes.

But when Dina tries to reciprocate, Ellie pulls away, suddenly cold and stiff. And Dina remembers that “just is” doesn’t mean “good” or even “here” - sometimes it just means surviving. 

Still, Dina sleeps somewhat deeply, and she wakes up with Ellie’s arms still around her and her breath tickling the back of her neck. Dina stretches carefully, just her limbs, and feels Ellie shift slightly behind her - but the arm she’s thrown over Dina’s middle doesn’t move, so Dina finds the hand belonging to that arm and threads her fingers through it.

At some point, she knows Ellie will start talking about time, and scheduling, and moving - and for a second, Dina thinks about time and cycles; she bites her tongue and grits her teeth against the nausea that roils through her. But for now, she tucks Ellie’s hand against the swell of her stomach and indulges in the taste of a future for which she can only hope.

* * *

Washington opens before them, lush and overgrown and wild.

Ellie is preoccupied with the weather changes and whether or not Shimmer will colic on all the rich grass that surrounds them, but the mare seems hardy and solid and fine despite all of Ellie’s worrying. Looking for a distraction for them both, Dina scours the ground for wildflowers on foot, and returns to Ellie and Shimmer with a handful of red blossoms.

“Talia loved these colors,” Dina murmurs absently, as Ellie plucks one from her hand. She smiles - a small, genuine thing - and tucks the flower behind Dina’s ear. 

Dina watches Ellie focus on the singular task of arranging her hair around the blossom - how her pupils dilate, how she bits her lower lip, how her eyebrows crinkle together. Dina catches Ellie’s hand before she can pull away and presses her lips to it. Then they continue on, hand-in-hand, until their scavenging forces them apart again.

Dina indulges later that night, imagining a delicate flower crown that she could wear at her wedding. When she wakes, Ellie is wrapped around her, the weight of her arm in the curve of Dina’s side. The rhythm of her breathing is too quick to be from sleep, so Dina rolls over and nuzzles the warm hollow of Ellie’s neck.

Dina expects Ellie to rouse them both and push them into getting a move on, but Ellie just holds her, for far longer than Dina expects. Ellie’s hair has fallen out of its tie, and Dina runs her fingers through it. There is something high in her throat at the knowledge that she’s rarely seen Ellie with her hair down until now. 

She is intoxicating, and part of Dina believes that when they separate, Ellie will let this go and tell them to turn around. She will take them home. And it’s such an inevitable thing, when Ellie doesn’t do this, that Dina almost cries for expecting something different.

Eventually, Dina can see Seattle in the distance, the tall buildings that cut into the blue and white horizon. She breathes against Ellie’s shoulder and watches the breeze play with strands of her auburn hair; she tries not to think about how many bodies are in that city, and how many guns, and how many knives and arrows - how much anger and violence they will wade into.

Ellie lowers the scope that she had fished from her bag. Dina can’t see her face, but she can tell that she’s thinking, worrying at her bottom lip again. Shimmer shifts under them, ears flicking, and Dina winces as the slight movement jostles her.

They walk into the valley below them, green and lush and exposed. They dismount to let Shimmer graze and eat their own lunch, supplemented with some QZ rations that they picked up in Portland. 

Ellie leans back into the grass, arms behind her head, looking every bit a carefree teenager for once. She points up to the sky, at the fluffy, friendly clouds that float over them, and starts identifying some with the ease of a child.

“There’s a rabbit sitting on top of an octopus.” 

“Okay, I have got to see this,” Dina responds, and she gingerly curls up against Ellie’s side, mindful of her own injured shoulder. She sights down the line of Ellie’s arm, trying to angle her head to see what she sees. 

“I think it looks like a giraffe.”

Ellie scoffs beside her. “That’s not what giraffes look like.” 

“Well it definitely doesn’t have eight legs. What about that one?” She points to her right, to a round, bulbous-looking cloud that sits low in the sky. 

“Sputnik One,” Ellie replies with easy confidence. 

“Bless you.”

Ellie rolls her eyes. “The first artificial satellite to orbit Earth.”

It’s Dina’s turn to scoff. “You’re such a nerd.” She nuzzles Ellie’s shoulder, the collar of her shirt, the skin of her neck. Ellie pulls her closer, winding an arm around her shoulders, and pain shoots through Dina and she hisses -

“ _Fuck_ , Dina, I’m sorry -” Ellie takes the pressure off immediately as Dina sits up, right hand going to the bandaged laceration on her left shoulder, as if she can brush away the pain. The bandage is old anyways, and she winces as she feels it shift under her fingertips.

It’s the first thing that gets cleaned when they bed down that night. Ellie’s hands are deft and gentle as she removes the tape and gauze from healthy and healing flesh alike, throwing the whole mess into the fire and gently palpating the area around the injury.

The splash of alcohol burns, and it’s cold enough to seep down into Dina’s bones - she grits her teeth to keep from whimpering. A clean, sharp smell drifts around them now, incongruous with the sweet scent of their campfire.

“Almost done, baby.”

Ellie speaks to her, but her eyes are solely on the wound, and through her pain Dina watches Ellie bandage it with sure, confident precision. There is no anger in Ellie’s face now, no vengeance or aggression - just a sweet singularity, a conviction and soft resilience that makes Dina’s heart sing. 

She says it absently, almost without thinking, because by now it is a reflex.

“I love you.”

And Ellie’s hands pause on her skin, green eyes finding her and brows knitting together as if she doesn’t believe what Dina’s said. So Dina waits for Ellie’s mouth to catch up with her brain, waits for Ellie to pack up her med kit and gently arrange Dina’s shirt over her bandage. She traces Dina’s collar, the line of her neck, and finally raises her eyes to meet Dina’s. Her gaze is soft and relaxed, as if she has finally given in to a current and is letting it pull her wherever it may.

“I love you, too.”

And then Dina closes the distance between them and kisses her, equal parts slow and soft but also quick and full. It’s all they have time for, because Seattle waits for them, looming and dark. But Dina traces Ellie’s jaw and sighs into the kiss, and feels Ellie’s pulse beneath her fingertips - rhythmic and strong. 

It’s all they have time for, but they have come this far, and so it’s everything.

* * *

After they’ve lost Shimmer and it’s just the two of them, something in Ellie hardens by a few more degrees. Dina, for her part, is tired - her body feels heavy and sore and she can still feel that scarred man’s hands around her throat - and a small part of her fantasizes about her bed back in Jackson, tries to conjure the feeling of drifting into unconsciousness in a place that’s actually safe...

Later, Dina palms the thin book from the bookstore - she sees herself on the cover, but she also wants something simple and easy and light, to carry through this hell. 

She also lingers at the shelves, paging through some of the still-dry books when all is quiet outside. They aren’t in there long enough for her to look in detail, but she skims sections that talk about _passing_ , about _signals_ \- clothing and rings and hairstyles and piercings and whole syntaxes of secret languages that allowed people like her to find others who would love them - who would build sanctuaries with them, and be their families, and fill their homes with light and happiness, even when others called them an abomination. 

Dina thinks of the desert.

She sets the book down and Ellie comes by her, already looking around outside the store. “Hey.” Dina takes her hand.

“What is it?”

Ellie is practically quivering with the need to keep moving, but she focuses, and Dina can see her warring with herself. She wonders if this is selfish, and trivial, but then she looks at the wide, flowering expanse of her love and decides that she doesn’t care. She runs her thumb along Ellie’s knuckles and leans up to press a gentle kiss to her mouth.

If Ellie is surprised at the affection, she doesn’t show it. She winds one arm around Dina’s waist and thumbs her jaw and kisses her soft and tender.

The day wears on into evening, and they bed down in a back room of a stripped pharmacy that actually has a lock on the door - although the ceiling is pockmarked with holes that show the night sky. Dina traces Ellie’s thigh absently through their short dinner, and then Ellie’s hand is warm and solid on her hip, and her eyes are hooded and shining in the dark. Her fingertips trace Dina’s jaw and pull her close, and Dina lets herself go.

They make love in the low light of their banked fire, only removing or repositioning clothing just enough to get the job done. Dina has a moment where she thinks - maybe not absurdly - that this is a waste of calories, and they should conserve their energy. But Ellie’s body, and Ellie’s hands on her body, are nourishing to her in a way that food isn’t. Ellie yields under Dina’s touch, not hard and frantic for once but instead tender and pliant. Dina smiles against Ellie’s mouth and traces circles against her clit, and Ellie shakes under her. 

One of Ellie’s hands dips down to join Dina’s, and Dina hums in approval as she slips her fingers inside Ellie instead. The position is awkward and Dina’s arm cramps and she doesn’t care. She hasn’t figured out all of Ellie’s needs yet, so she’ll take whatever help she can get, and there’s still something undeniably hot about watching Ellie bring herself off for her.

Ellie is hardly forthcoming about what she wants when they’re intimate, and Dina has made little headway into this area in the past few weeks, for obvious reasons - but Dina thinks she’s on the right track when she tells Ellie how soft and good she feels, how perfect she is, and Ellie comes, her moan tamped down low in the back of her throat, gasping in Dina’s ear and spasming around Dina’s fingers.

It makes Dina’s heart hurt a little, to think that even when it’s _her_ job to make Ellie feel good, Ellie still needs Dina to tell her that it’s okay to let go.

When Dina reaches down to fight with her jeans, Ellie just breathes against her temple and kisses her skin and plays with her hair until Dina’s created enough space for Ellie to reach under her clothing. Dina slides down onto her fingers easily, hands scrabbling for purchase on Ellie’s shoulders, rocking her hips and clenching her teeth against her groans. 

Dina is frantic, but Ellie moves easily. She presses a tender line of kisses along her neck, and wraps her free arm around Dina’s waist to stabilize her as Dina rides her hand.

Dina comes quickly, hips jerking in Ellie’s lap, as Ellie murmurs sweet, soft things into her ear and thrusts her fingers to help her ride it out. As her orgasm fades, Dina wraps her arms around Ellie’s neck and closes her eyes. She tips her head back into the night air, gasping hard. 

A breeze caresses her neck, cool where Ellie is kissing her, and Dina imagines that they are the only bright spot in the entire city, the only light in a sea of black.

And if someone were to look down on them from space, they would see the pinprick that is their love - shining, undeniable, and irrevocable in the darkness.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dina remembers. JJ gives Dina some advice. Ellie tries to build a treehouse (or is it a spaceship?). There are lots of backrubs and some crying, but hey, that's life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After way too much angst, we're back with some more domestic fluff (and a little angst, sorry).

JJ was a sensitive child - sensitive to sounds and changes in routine, sensitive to the presence of strangers, sensitive to changes in Ellie or Dina’s demeanor. Dina knew that Ellie, in her darker moments, wondered if her own trauma responses had rubbed off on him somehow - but Dina did her best to assure her that him being sensitive was a wonderful gift. 

And indeed, he brought home stories from school about comforting classmates who were upset, making large swaths of friends, being doted on by his teachers - but he also brought home frustration, usually at his inability to solve his friends’ problems. The occasional result was a temper tantrum or a slammed doors at his refusal to believe that some things could not be fixed, at least not immediately

He was every inch Dina’s fire and Jesse’s compassion.

Despite his sensitivity - or perhaps because of it - he was a quick study to Ellie’s jokes, and was rapidly learning exactly how to poke and prod her to get her attention.

“Mom...mom...mummy...mom…”

His latest strategy involved walking around the kitchen on his tiptoes - in full view of Ellie, while she pretended to ignore him, nose buried in a book and socked feet resting on the kitchen table.

“Mooooom...mom...mom…”

JJ absolutely vibrated with suppressed laughter as he snuck closer, and closer, and closer, until with a swift movement Ellie tossed her book aside and grabbed for his wrists.

“Boo!”

JJ shrieked and laughed as Ellie angled to tickle his sides, book fully forgotten on the kitchen table.

“No fair, Mummy!”

Deciding it was time to put an end to things, Dina pushed herself off of the couch and padded into the kitchen, arms rounding JJ. “Don’t torture your son, babe,” she shot at Ellie, smile on her face.

“He started it!” Ellie replied indignantly, a frown ghosting across her features.

Dina noted the sleep shirt and raggedy sweatpants that JJ still wore. “Go put on some real clothes, bubba.” She nudged him up the stairs easily and turned back to the kitchen. Ellie sagged back in her chair tiredly, looking up with a soft smile when she heard Dina approach.

“That child has so much of you in him,” Dina sighed, leaning down from behind to press a kiss to Ellie’s cheek and draping her arms over Ellie’s shoulders.

“I don’t know how you put up with the both of us,” Ellie murmured in reply, running her hands up over Dina’s forearms.

“Somehow I manage,” Dina replied, sing-song, sighing heavily against Ellie’s neck and smiling there. They stayed there, holding each other; Dina was happy for a tender moment in the middle of a busy day and busier week. Her logs called to her from upstairs, but for now, she pressed another kiss to Ellie’s neck and hummed.

After a minute, Ellie kissed her jaw in finality and Dina reluctantly let her arms slide from around her shoulders. “Duty calls,” Ellie yawned, standing up and stretching.

“Don’t hurt yourself, babe,” Dina murmured, straightening out the collar of Ellie’s shirt.

“Never do, at least not on purpose,” Ellie replied, and Dina rolled her eyes, but accepted the light kiss Ellie pressed to her mouth anyways. 

Dina retreated to her little office - or what could barely be called an office, as cramped as it was with Ellie’s knickknacks and JJ’s toys. At least Ellie had agreed to move her comics to their bedroom closet, which freed up several boxes’ worth of space. 

The lackadaisical heat of the summer didn’t mean a decrease in any amount of work for any able-bodied resident of Jackson. Dustin had grumbled at Dina even as she returned from their latest reconnaissance with what she considered to be a massive success - news of a small but sturdy cabin in the mountains that just needed some work in the basement. 

Of course, “just” was never a small thing in their world, and Dina had volunteered to spearhead electronics’ contributions to getting a functional safe house up and running. A semi-working generator was a start, but Maria wanted to start testing radio transmission among the safe houses, and that took slightly more planning and infrastructure.

Absently, Dina tapped the framed picture of herself and Talia with her pen while she rested her eyes from the overly-detailed schematics. From time to time, she wondered what role her sister would have settled into in the community. Talia had been sensitive like JJ, able to read a room or a gathering with unsettling quickness. As her paranoia sank deeper and deeper, this sensitivity twisted itself into a destructive thing - into evidence, motive, and reasons to distrust when there were none.

Dina shook herself back to the present, frowning at the papers in front of her. She indulged and leaned forward to watch Ellie and JJ from her window that looked out onto the backyard. Ellie was hidden from view, but JJ lounged in the grass, seemingly content to watch the sky.

Work could wait. Dina pushed herself back from her desk decisively and was back on the ground floor in seconds, shouldering open the door to the back porch.

She was greeted immediately by JJ running towards her, grass stains on his jeans and dirt stains on his elbows. Dina tried to estimate how much bleach she’d already used on stains that summer - but she dropped the thought at the wide smile on JJ’s face. It only widened as he threw his arms around her legs.

“You should see what we’re building, Momma!”

“I saw it all the way from upstairs, my love. Are you done for the day?”

JJ nodded his head vigorously - “Mom said she was gonna read to me later” - and Dina smiled and leaned down to press a kiss to the top of his head. She then drew back, nose wrinkling.

“Whew, buddy, you need a bath first,” Dina said, and JJ responded with a laugh, but he retreated willingly into the house. The sounds of his footsteps faded as he ran upstairs.

Dina sauntered further into the backyard, to the sight of Ellie semi-jumping out of the thick, sturdy tree that sprang up in the back half of their yard. The tree had low, sturdy branches that rapidly became sparse the higher up you went, and Ellie had erected what Dina could only guess was flooring - a horizontal sheet of wood, cut to sit flush against the curve of the tree trunk, and supported by a few angled planks. The whole thing had an air of utter unfinishedness to it.

Dina’s breath caught as Ellie met the ground, but she not-so-gracefully rolled out of the impact and stumbled to her feet, limber as always.

“What did I say about not hurting yourself?” Dina called, lips twitching in a smile. Her eyes raked over the contrast of the dark green of Ellie’s tattoo against her slick skin; the way the sun had kissed the tops of her shoulders a light pink that matched her cheeks and the bridge of her nose; how her bangs fell into her face until she brushed them back behind her ear, tentatively poking at the low bun at the base of her neck to see if everything was still contained.

Ellie made a beeline for Dina, still looking up at the tree as she walked, and Dina could almost see her making mental measurements and calculations before she stepped close, arms looping around Dina’s waist.

“Hey, handsome,” Dina murmured, wiping at a smudge of dirt on Ellie’s jaw. “What are you building?”

Ellie’s mouth quirked - “A spaceship” was her dry reply - and Dina mirrored her, mouth curling as she looked pointedly over Ellie’s shoulder at the tree.

“ _Definitely_ space-worthy, babe,” she said, and Ellie rolled her eyes.

“Would you believe me if I said it’s a treehouse?”

“Somehow a spaceship is more believable.”

“Okay, come on.” Ellie stood back, hands on Dina’s hips, and Dina let Ellie manhandle her until they both stood directly in front of the tree. Ellie leaned down so her mouth was right next to Dina’s ear, and held up her hands in front of them both so that they framed the tree. She gestured to imaginary parts as she spoke. “Roof, walls, flooring, and some kinda ladder thing. Treehouse!”

Dina cocked her head, thinking. “Mmm. I’m trying really hard and I _can’t_ quite see it yet, babe.”

“Oh come on,” Ellie retorted, letting her arms fall and wrapping them around Dina’s waist. She tugged Dina backwards, flush against her, and pressed a kiss to her neck. A smile bloomed on Dina’s lips. “My therapist says you’re supposed to support my creative endeavors.”

It was not the most ludicrous “My therapist says” aphorism that Ellie had pulled out in recent memory, but Dina rolled her eyes nonetheless.

“Is this a creative endeavor or a misguided home improvement project?”

“Both,” Ellie replied, nose still buried against Dina’s neck. 

“Want help?”

“Nah.” Right as Ellie replied, a plank of wood came loose and fell with a _thud_ to the grass below. Sometimes the universe had impeccable timing.

“You sure about that?” Dina rubbed her own hands over Ellie’s, leaning back into her until she was practically on her heels. She turned her head to kiss Ellie’s jaw. 

“Mhmm. Are you using a new shampoo?”

“Lavender,” Dina replied, letting her head tip back into the curve of Ellie’s shoulder, eyes drifting closed for a moment. “Traded for it last week.”

“Mmm, _lavender_ ,” Ellie rumbled against her neck, lips moving against Dina’s skin as her fingertips ghosted over Dina’s midriff - and Dina shivered pleasantly, but chuckled at the both of them. 

“That treehouse isn’t gonna be much more than a tree pallet if you keep this up,” Dina chastised, and Ellie just flashed a lopsided grin. Dina then made a great show of sniffing the air - “You may need a bath more than your son, you know.”

Ellie hummed against her neck - “Wanna join?” - and Dina relaxed back against her.

“Later,” she murmured against Ellie’s ear. “I should start dinner.”

“Well don’t get too far along without me.”

“So you can burn the fish again?”

“Baby, that was _one time_ -”

“Mhmm.” Dina just waved Ellie back inside.

Dinner came together with only a slight char on the fish. Ellie, for her part, assembled a bright summer salad, drizzled in a homemade salad dressing provided by Cat and Alice.

Dina picked at her fish, and tried to stay engaged as JJ recounted a story of a coyote one of his friends swore they’d seen the day prior. Something like tiredness - not the kind that indicated a need for sleep, but the kind that came with consistent, cyclic difficulty - washed over Dina, and she sighed heavily when JJ stood to place his plate next to the sink. Ellie’s hand found its way to her thigh under the table, warm and solid and soothing.

The sunset was brilliant as Dina shooed JJ upstairs. He asked for a couple of stories, but all his play and the excitement about the treehouse had tired him out. He continued to babble tiredly at Ellie, until she kissed his cheek and told him to go to sleep.

Dina resumed her position on the couch and tried to read, although she could hardly focus on the text in front of her, and turned the pages absently just to do something with her hands. The sun was almost fully down now, their little house ensconced in a soft darkness. Dina tapped her fingertips on her thigh, sighed, and set her book aside - she found Ellie in the kitchen, elbow-deep in sudsy sink water. Dina’s arms circled her waist, and she pressed a kiss to her shoulder.

“Finish those later. Come sit with me?”

It was a warm night, and Dina inhaled the sweet scents of trees and dirt and crisp, mountain air as she leaned back into Ellie’s arms. Their porch swing creaked with their weight.

“How’re you feeling?” Ellie’s breath ghosted over the base of her neck, and Dina pressed back further and tried to temper the grief that rose in her. 

“About tomorrow?”

“Mhmm.” Ellie exhaled against Dina’s shoulder pressing her mouth there and waiting, fingers intertwined in Dina’s lap. Dina traced the part of Ellie’s tattoo that curled around her right wrist, admiring how the low light from inside their house and from the front porch painted her skin in a warm, autumnal overtone. 

“I’m…” The words wouldn’t come. It had been so long, and yet no time at all. “Sometimes I…” Dina swallowed.

“She should be alive, to see all of this. To know JJ. To know you.” Her voice felt soft and frail, and she didn’t want to look. But then she did: at the wide expanse of her beautiful life, and the dark, cold absence that was her sister’s place in it.

Ellie’s arms tightened around her hips, pulling Dina into the warm, solid curve of her body. The act itself was comfort enough, far more so than any stumbling aphorisms or advice. Dina let Ellie hold her through her pain, absently stroking their intertwined hands.

“She would have loved you,” Dina murmured, solemn, as she continued to trace Ellie’s fingers.

“Why is that?”

“Because I love you.”

Ellie smiled against her neck and whispered her own proclamation there, as soft as the breeze that pulled at their hair and as lasting as the mountains that jutted up around them. Dina sank further back into Ellie’s soft warmth and let it all wash over her - all her aches and all her love and all her joy, those sweet contradictions that filled her life.

* * *

Dina didn’t remember going up to bed - just that at some point she blinked her eyes open and she was staring into the blue-black of their bedroom, watching shapes loom out at her from the darkness. She wiggled her fingers and toes and tried to settle into the soft warmth of her blankets. Ellie must have led her upstairs - she now slept soundly next to Dina, a welcome sight after a difficult couple of weeks.

Something tugged at Dina, and she knew that she wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep even if she tried. As silently as she could, she slipped out of bed, feeling her bare feet ghost over the hardwood flooring as she crept towards the bedroom door.

Downstairs, the _yahrzeit_ candle had already been lit - probably by Ellie, and Dina smiled at the thought. Dina gently placed it on the coffee table and curled up in front of it on the couch. She wrapped a blanket around herself and studied the flame as it swayed in the night. 

The light glinted off of photos that they had framed and placed in the living room - pictures from when JJ was a newborn, and then a toddler, and now; hers and Ellie’s wedding; the three of them and Jesse’s parents, crowded together for various holidays and birthdays. Dina wrapped the blanket tighter around her. It felt so strange, to think back on the depth of her life, how much had already happened and how much there was to come.

She heard Ellie before she saw her, registering the creak in the stairwell long before Ellie padded into the candle’s light.

“Hey.” Ellie sat down slowly, and Dina savored the feeling of the whole length of Ellie’s body pressing against her side.

“Did I wake you?” Dina murmured, opening her arms so that Ellie could slide under the blanket with her. Ellie shook her head.

“I just wanted to check on you. I always feel so alone when I’m down here at night.”

Dina’s heart ached at the thought, at the many nights she knew Ellie’s frenetic mind interrupted the rest she so desperately needed. It in turn twinged at this new (though expected) piece of information that Ellie had offered up so willingly. With jarring casualness, it struck Dina that there were still pieces of Ellie that she hadn’t fully seen in the light. 

Dina reached over and squeezed Ellie’s hand in her own, running a thumb over her knuckles.

“I’m okay. I think I just need a little time. Go back to sleep, love.” Her response didn’t quite smooth the line between Ellie’s brows, but Dina trusted Ellie to know when she needed to be left alone.

“Okay,” Ellie replied, squeezing back and reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind Dina’s ear. “Wake me if you need anything.” Ellie crept back upstairs, and Dina continued to study the candle until the soft light of dawn slowly crept into the sky. She went back upstairs, slipped back under the blankets, and watched Ellie sleep.

* * *

Dina woke to the sight of Ellie reading next to her, propped up on a pillow. Dina snuggled closer and curled against Ellie’s body, tangling their legs together and resting her head against Ellie’s middle.

“G’morning,” Ellie murmured, one hand descending to play with Dina’s hair, the other holding her book aloft. Dina hummed in pleasure at the attention and draped an arm around Ellie’s waist.

“Read to me?” she murmured tiredly against the fabric of Ellie’s sleep shirt, and she heard Ellie scoff. Dina leaned backwards to meet Ellie’s eyes, giving her a small look of annoyance.

“You really wanna hear about -” Ellie flipped the book over so she could see the cover. “- the Feynman Lectures?” Her mouth quirked. “Volume _one_.”

Dina just snuggled back against Ellie’s waist. “I like to hear your voice,” she murmured with finality, and she could tell by the way Ellie’s hand settled solidly against her shoulder that she would indulge Dina this morning. 

Dina almost drifted off again, to the rich timbre of Ellie’s voice and Ellie’s warmth against her - but the early morning sun that found its way through the windows was enough to keep her conscious.

They had a lazy morning by their standards, slow to leave their bed. Ellie let JJ continue to sleep after she peeked into his room briefly - though she then accepted Dina’s hand and let Dina lead her downstairs.

They split off once they hit the kitchen, but occasionally drifted back together absently, swaying to imagined music while toasting bread and scrambling eggs. Ellie was especially touchy this morning, straightening out wild curls of Dina’s hair and running a hand along her shoulders as she passed, or rubbing Dina’s low back in a quiet moment in front of the stove.

Normally, Dina would have teased Ellie about her touchiness, but this morning she just leaned back gratefully into Ellie’s arms, savoring her warmth and humming. 

Their day was essentially open, for once - Ellie’s rotations had been moved elsewhere in the week, and the little electrician’s guild where Dina worked all agreed that she should take the day off. Dina had pushed back at that, until Dustin regarded her with a raised eyebrow - more communication than she usually got from him - and nudged her out: “Go spend the day with your family.”

It felt like time was moving both too slowly and too quickly that morning. A storm was rolling in on a cool breeze, so Ellie handed Dina her coat - and when had JJ put on his coat? For that matter, since when had JJ been able to put on his coat by _himself_? 

Dina could swear that yesterday she had watched Ellie guide his still-pudgy arms through its sleeves, as he giggled at her ministrations. But now he was almost somber, quiet as he took Dina’s hand in his own when she approached. He looked up at her with big, wide eyes, a question clearly forming on his lips.

“Momma, can I give a flower to Auntie Talia?”

“Flowers are for joy, honey,” Dina replied, leaning down to smooth out some of the wrinkles in JJ’s coat. “Do you remember what we put on graves?”

“Stones?”

Dina smiled. “That’s right.”

JJ’s brows crinkled. “So why does Mummy put flowers on Grandpa Joel’s grave?”

Dina turned this over quickly, hoping for an adequate answer. “Different people expect different things.” This seemed sufficient for JJ, who nodded.

“I think I like stones better,” he said absently, as he skipped down the stairs of the front porch.

Ellie caught Dina’s hand as she closed the front door. “Sorry,” she murmured. “I hope I didn’t confuse him.”

“No, babe,” Dina replied, rubbing Ellie’s arm. “It’s fine.”

Ellie responded with a small smile. “Joel would probably think stones were a cruel joke.”

“And Talia would roll over in her grave if I ever put flowers on it.”

The walk to the cemetery was both too long and too short. JJ scampered ahead at times, finding rocks or little trinkets and excitedly bringing them back to Ellie and Dina. “I wanna find the perfect stone for Auntie Talia,” he said, as Dina smiled down at him. Ellie’s thumb brushed over her knuckles, and then her arm snaked around Dina’s waist, pulling her close. 

The cemetery gates slowly came into Dina’s vision, and part of her wanted to rush - wanted things to be over and done with, so she could retreat back to the warm coziness of her life. She took a deep, steadying breath, trying to enjoy the summer’s day around them - and then they were there.

“With your left hand, bubba,” Dina murmured, brushing JJ’s shoulder as he knelt next to her. The three stones that they placed created a little cairn in the dirt. JJ rested his chin in his hands, looking contemplative.

“Does Auntie Talia know we’re here, Momma?”

“I think so.”

“Does she know that we love her?”

Dina wound her arms around JJ and kissed his cheek. “I’m certain she does, bubba.” She felt JJ lean into her momentarily, his weight warm and solid and comforting.

Dina stood, and her hand found Ellie’s. “Can you give me a minute?”

“Want me to take him?”

“Yeah. I don’t need much longer.”

Then Ellie’s arm was wrapped around her shoulders, and her lips were on Dina’s temple. “Take as long as you need, love.”

Dina responded with a small smile and then sat, cross-legged in the dirt, listening to the sound of Ellie’s and JJ’s retreating footsteps. She took another shaky breath.

“JJ keeps asking about you, Tal.” She smiled to herself. “He wants to know everything there is to know about you...and there’s so much. I don’t know where to start.”

A breeze floated around her, and the tear tracks against her cheeks were cool.

“Ellie’s trying to build a treehouse in our backyard,” Dina said, chuckling. “I thought _I_ was the handy one in the family.” The trees creaked and shifted in the distance. “Yeah, I know. I’ll give her a chance.”

Dina absently traced the little cairn of stones with her fingertips, careful not to disturb any. 

“I still don’t know what we’re gonna do for our first anniversary.” Dina glanced down at her wedding band. “You would have good ideas. You said you were never a romantic, but you always knew how to make things meaningful. Ellie says she’s fine with anything, but…” Dina sighed. “I want it to be special.”

Dina didn’t know how much time passed as she closed her eyes, trying to gather herself to pray. She let the sounds of the world wash over her, wide and expansive and immense, and focused on the bright core of her love for her sister, her eternal light.

* * *

Dina found Ellie and JJ in front of the butcher’s, exchanging words with Jerry as he wiped his hands on his stained apron. Dina leaned up against Ellie for a moment, resting against her as Ellie rubbed circles against her back and accepted a parcel from Jerry with a smile.

“Watch yourself, or you’ll buy me out of my brisket.”

Ellie chuckled. “I’m counting on you, man - my wife loves it.” Despite the cloak of her grief, Dina’s heart fluttered and she pressed more firmly against Ellie.

“Take care of that beautiful family, alright?” Jerry waved them away, and Dina took JJ’s hand in hers, and the little threesome made their way down the street.

They entered their house with little ceremony - Dina turned away briefly to brush at her eyes while Ellie vanished into the cellar, probably to put the brisket in the freezer.

Dina didn’t realize that she had been staring at the _mezuzah_ next to the front door until Ellie had returned to the ground floor, and was making her way towards her. Behind Ellie, JJ scampered over from the kitchen.

Ellie turned - “JJ, why don’t you go grab that book you wanted to show me?” - and JJ’s face immediately lit up, as he practically rocketed up the stairs.

Dina gave a watery chuckle. “What is it now?”

“I think it’s one of mine, actually. I did find that _Space Ghost_ comic a couple of weeks ago...” Ellie trailed away. Dina smiled at the thought, and then Ellie’s fingertips were on her jaw. “You okay?”

Her voice was so quiet and soft and it made Dina’s heart ache - and then tears were running down her cheeks, and Dina scrubbed at them with her sleeves. “I’m sorry, this is silly. It’s been years -”

“Hey, no. C’mere.” And Ellie’s arms were solid around her, and Dina buried her nose against her neck and fisted her hands in her coat. “‘S not silly,” Ellie breathed against her hair. Dina shuddered with suppressed sobs and inhaled Ellie’s scent of pine and rain, while Ellie murmured to her and swayed.

“I just miss her so much,” Dina croaked, pulling away to look up into Ellie’s concerned eyes. 

“I know,” Ellie replied, voice soft, thumbing Dina’s jaw and wiping some of her tears away. 

Ellie then looked up - the sound of JJ’s socked feet pattering against the hardwood floor sounded over their heads - and then back down to Dina, who bit her lip.

“You wanna go lay down? I’ll handle lunch.”

Dina rocked back and forth on her feet for a second, on that precipice of choice. Finally - “Yeah, yeah. I didn’t sleep well anyways,” she replied, as if convincing herself. Ellie’s small smile assuaged some of Dina’s guilt, and she accepted the kiss that was pressed lightly against her mouth.

“Go rest,” Ellie whispered against Dina’s lips as she pulled away.

Ellie made to head JJ off at the base of the stairs - “Hey, kiddo. Wanna help me make sandwiches while you show me that book?” - and Dina ascended when they were squarely in the kitchen, feeling like she had to drag her feet just to keep moving.

Upstairs, Dina curled up under her blankets. She sometimes felt too exhausted to think back on all that had happened to her and Talia - where they had come from, their long journey to Jackson, Talia’s slow descent into paranoia…

Dina drifted off into some sleepy limbo, and then the bedroom door creaked - she raised her head from the bed and there was JJ.

“Momma?” His eyes were wide with concern.

“Mmm? Hey, bubba.” Dina pushed herself up into a sitting position, trying to pat her hair into some semblance of order. “Weren’t you helping Mummy with lunch?”

“She said I could come check on you,” JJ replied, as he scrambled into the bed and crawled towards her. Dina opened her arms and he sat in the curve of her side, resting against the headboard. 

“Are you sad about Auntie Talia?”

Dina inhaled and looked down at JJ’s genuine, open expression. He was so, so young. “I am, bubba.”

JJ nodded, and seemed to consider this for a second. “Do you miss her a lot?” he continued, voice soft.

Dina bit her lip. “I do…I wish she was here to meet you. She’d like you a lot.”

JJ smiled at that, eyes crinkling. “I think I’d like her too.” He settled against her torso and her arm went around him, playing with the dark locks of hair that curled just past his ears.

“Will you tell me a story about her?”

Dina smiled, resting back further against the headboard. “Of course, my love. What kind of story would you like to hear?”

“How about...an adventure story!”

“Okay. Okay, an adventure story…” Dina bit her lip in thought, and JJ settled against her arm, watching her expectantly.

“Have I told you how I came to Jackson?” JJ shook his head vigorously.

Dina began. “Way before you were born, Auntie Talia and I lived really far away from here, in a place called New Mexico.”

“Where’s that?”

“It’s pretty far away, further south. I can show you.” Dina extracted herself from the bed and padded over to her desk of drawers, pulling out a loosely rolled-up map from the bottom drawer and spreading it open on the bedspread. She traced New Mexico absently with her fingertip while JJ scrambled to her side, watching with intent. 

“It gets really hot there during the summer. But it also gets really cold during the winter, because it’s pretty high up.”

“Kind of like Jackson!”

“Yes,” Dina replied, smiling. “So, Auntie Talia and I lived in New Mexico. And one day, we decided to leave. So we walked all the way from New Mexico” - She set her finger on the map, and dragged it northward - “up to Jackson.”

“You _walked_?”

“We did. The whole way!”

JJ studied the map with wide eyes, clearly thinking.

“Why did you leave New Mexico?” And Dina had been trying to prepare for this question, to cobble together an appropriate answer, but it still jarred her a little -

“New Mexico didn’t have walls, like Jackson. Or so many people who can help protect us. It just wasn’t safe.”

JJ nodded, seeming to consider that. “Momma, if Jackson is safe, why did Auntie Talia die?”

Dina exhaled through her nose in a measured way, trying to gather herself. How much would she tell him? How much was he ready to know? How much darkness in the world would she share with him?

She would start simple for now. “Auntie Talia was outside the walls, and some bad people found her. Which is why you should only go outside of the walls with me or your mom, remember?”

It felt inadequate, but JJ nodded vigorously, shock still evident on his face. Dina gave a watery smile and hugged him close to her side, praying that she had done the right thing - that he wouldn’t think less of Talia, that he still trusted her and Ellie to keep him safe in this world. 

Dina breathed against the top of his head, suddenly overwhelmed by exhaustion. “I miss her so much, bubba.”

At this, JJ looked up at her, his gaze suddenly serious. “I can help you, Momma. Come on.” He tugged on her hand and made to climb out of the bed, so firm in his convictions that all Dina could do was follow.

* * *

JJ pulled Dina down to the landing and into the kitchen - Dina waved Ellie away when she greeted them with a look of surprise, butter knife held aloft. JJ just tugged Dina to the kitchen table, urging her to sit down next to him.

When they were settled to JJ’s satisfaction, he looked up at Dina, unblinking, and she knew to listen.

“Every time you feel sad because you miss someone, you just gotta think _real_ hard about how much that person loved you. Okay?”

Dina felt her lips curve into a smile as she met JJ’s wide, expectant look. “Okay.”

JJ nodded, his expression serious. “We gotta practice now,” he said in an even tone that was jarring for his age. 

Dina could only play along. “Who are you thinking of?”

JJ paused for a moment, then - “I’m thinking of daddy.”

For a second, Dina tore her eyes away from her son and met Ellie’s concerned gaze where she had frozen in the kitchen. Dina scrambled for some composure and turned back to JJ, plastering a smile over her face.

JJ now had his eyes scrunched closed, and Dina hurried to copy him.

Of course Talia had loved her - Talia had loved her so much that she had walked halfway across the country for her, she had killed and maimed for her, she had died for her. Dina had slowly, slowly learned that she was not to blame for her sister’s death, but it was such a delicate, fragile process - like assembling a brick wall with wet cement that never dried, and one wrong placement or slip would ruin the entire thing…

She confided in Ellie about this from time to time, and occasionally in JJ, when it seemed like something that could be turned into a lesson about grief and patience. But Dina realized then that she’d been so caught up in the past couple of weeks - and so assured that she could handle what was coming, could handle whatever riptide remained that would pull her to her grief - that maybe she hadn’t given it the time it demanded, the time that it deserved.

Dina loved Talia, and missed her, and that was worth honoring.

She didn’t realize that tears had slipped out of the corners of her eyes until she opened them, blinking in the light. JJ’s hand was in hers.

“Did it work, Momma?”

Dina swallowed and squeezed JJ’s hand. “I think it did, bubba.”

JJ’s grin was bright, and all of the seriousness seemed to fade away from his expression. “It worked for me too!”

Sometimes - and recently more and more - Dina wanted to see inside her son’s head, to know how he saw the world and all its pain and loss. But for now, she just smiled and ruffled JJ’s hair. “That’s really good, honey.” Her voice cracked.

“Do we have any mustard?” Ellie’s voice came from practically inside a cabinet. 

“I got it,” Dina replied, trying to surreptitiously wipe at her face as she walked towards their walk-in pantry. She closed the door part-way behind her and braced her hands on the shelving, inhaling shakily.

Dina didn’t know how long she stood there when there was a soft knock and a murmured “Hey, baby.” Ellie slowly pushed the door open and Dina turned round rapidly, fumbling a jar in her hands and trying to regain some of her composure.

“Hey...I found mustard.” She held up the jar. Ellie held up a tissue.

“Trade?”

Dina wanted to feel irritated at how poorly she had masked her emotions, but she just wiped her eyes and blew her nose as Ellie’s free hand traveled along her back again, strong and firm and warm. Dina slowed her breathing and swayed with her movements.

Eventually she took Ellie’s hand in her own, silently telling her to stop. “I’m...I’m okay.” 

“Okay,” Ellie replied, a soft smile on her face. “Extra pickled onions, right?”

Dina squeezed Ellie’s hand and held her there for a second longer, letting a small smile come to her face. “Right.” Ellie plucked Dina’s tissue-less hand up and gently pressed her lips to it, before she turned back towards the kitchen.

The afternoon passed in a soft, sweet blur of domesticity. JJ tugged Ellie over to the couch to continue discussing the book he had picked out (or rather, have Ellie read sections of it to him while he pointed at pictures and asked questions); then the two of them went over plans for the treehouse, mapped out on paper in crayon. Dina looked them over with pride, making suggestions here and there.

“Momma, can you add lights after it’s built?”

Dina chuckled and kissed the top of JJ’s head. “I can certainly try.” She traced part of the drawing that jutted out from the rest. “What’s this?”

“A spaceship,” JJ replied casually, not even looking up from his scribbling. When Dina raised her eyebrows at Ellie, she just shrugged in return - “Don’t look at me, babe, he added that himself.”

Inevitably, JJ fell asleep, splayed across the couch. Dina looked up from her spot on the loveseat, embroidery in hand, and watched Ellie straighten up his crayons and touch a lock of his wild hair.

Dina scootched over, setting her embroidery aside and rubbing the empty spot next to her until Ellie got the message. Ellie settled and Dina rounded her arms around her, the two of them stretching their legs out to rest on the coffee table. Dina smiled at Ellie’s mismatched socks and stroked the back of her neck, humming as Ellie kissed her jaw and rubbed her shoulders.

“Are you feeling better, baby?”

“A little,” Dina breathed, as she watched the comfortable rhythm of JJ’s chest rising and falling. 

“I think we’re doing a good job with that one,” Ellie added, following her gaze.

“You think so?” Absently, Dina stroked the hand that Ellie rested on her belly, then threaded their fingers together.

“Tal would be proud of you.”

“Mmm.”

“Jesse would too.”

Dina smiled crookedly. “I’m certain he’d find something to complain about.”

“From you and me? Never.” Ellie pressed a kiss against her neck, and Dina giggled. She rested her head against Ellie's collarbone, listened to the steady thrum of her heart, and simply let the world move around her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: Ellie is a space nerd with a shoddy education living in the post-apocalypse, where the concept of structured education barely exists anymore.  
> Also me: Ellie definitely reads [The Feynman Lectures on Physics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feynman_Lectures_on_Physics) in her spare time.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That sweet, fumbling first time. Ellie is equal parts semi-suave and a complete disaster; Dina is the queen of dirty talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on vacation, and this has been sitting around in my drafts for ages, so I thought it was time for it to see the light of day.
> 
> This is just straight-up smut, y'all. NSFW.

Kissing Dina was like kissing fire.

Not just because she burned under Ellie’s touch - not just because her mouth was nothing but hot, wet heat. 

No, it was because her whole body was like fire made flesh - how she moved constantly under Ellie’s hands, how gasps and moans flickered from her mouth and vanished out into the air as Ellie kissed down her neck.

Ellie’s sweatshirt had vanished from her body at some point, and she didn’t have time to wonder where it had gone when Dina fisted her hands in her plaid shirt. “You really _are_ wearing the same clothes you wore yesterday,” she gasped, and part of Ellie wanted to roll her eyes in response.

“I guess they’re good luck, or something,” Ellie chided back, and Dina barked out a laugh. Ellie flushed.

“God, I’ve wanted this for so long,” Dina muttered as she sat up and wrestled with her shoes, and it jarred Ellie, how _casually_ she said those words, how easily she shared her feelings -

Ellie copied Dina and took off her own shoes and socks, because her brain had stopped working entirely, because this was still _Dina_ but it was Dina as she had never seen her - Dina, who took off her socks and pants and framed Ellie’s face in her hands and kissed her; who pulled Ellie down on top of her, between her spread legs; who encouraged Ellie to touch her breasts under her shirt and whimpered in pleasure as she did; who wanted Ellie to do things _to_ her, things that fell from her lips and that Ellie had only ever imagined doing -

“You’re too dressed,” Dina muttered, sounding almost drunk, as her hands fisted in Ellie’s undershirt again. Ellie smiled and dispelled herself of that garment quickly, gasping as Dina traced the newly-revealed skin of her abdomen with her fingertips.

Then Dina reached up to let her own hair down, and Ellie sat back and touched the waistband of her jeans absently, as if she didn’t know what to do.

“Are you sure?” 

The words were out of her mouth before she even registered them, and she looked down to see Dina twisting out of her shirt. Her belly was a wide expanse of soft skin and freckles, and it made Ellie’s breath catch -

“What do you mean, am I _sure_?” And then her undershirt was gone and Dina was naked except for her underwear - mostly-naked and underneath Ellie, with her arms resting above her head and her hair mussed and her breasts just _there_ \- and Ellie swallowed hard.

“Do you want this?”

And for once, Dina didn’t dodge. 

Instead, she took Ellie’s hands in her own, threading their fingers together. For a second Ellie was struck at how small Dina’s hands were compared to hers, at how neatly their fingers fit together, at how her olive tones contrasted against Ellie’s own pale skin…

“Yes.” And Dina’s voice was soft and low. “Do you?”

Ellie wanted to laugh - how could she explain how much she wanted this? How could she tell Dina that she had wanted this for years, that it had always come back to her, in both her darkest and brightest moments - that it had only ever been Dina?

But for now, Ellie’s “Yes” would have to do. Dina smiled up at her, and some measure of tension went out of Ellie’s body. She leaned forward, hovering over Dina, and kissed her.

It wasn’t long before any remaining space between their bodies was shrunk down to something infinitesimal. Dina tugged impatiently at Ellie’s jeans and those were soon disposed of as well, and then they were both mostly-naked. Dina inclined her head and deepened her kiss and Ellie felt like she was falling, falling into the dark warmth that was Dina and her body, and how Dina’s legs wrapped around her waist, and how Dina’s hips rocked, and how their bodies moved and gasped and groaned together like a single organism. 

Dina cursed when Ellie took one of her nipples into her mouth, sucking and kissing and nibbling. Her hips and her ribcage just kept rolling - and if Dina was fire before, now she was the ocean, everything rhythmic and repetitive, from the movement of her body to the way Ellie’s name fell from her mouth - “Ellie, Ellie, Ellie -”

Eventually, Ellie’s mouth met the top of Dina’s underwear, and she looked up to check in, running her hands up over Dina’s sides. “You good?”

And Dina nodded hastily - “Keep going.”

Dina lifted her hips and wiggled out of her underwear and Ellie helped her along, laughing, and then falling silent as Dina’s legs fell open. Ellie absently ran her hands up and down Dina’s thighs and across her stomach. 

Dina was wet, wet for _her_ , and the thought made Ellie think she was losing her mind, that none of this was real. She kissed Dina’s thigh to ground herself, running her thumb over a mole that sat near her thatch of wiry, dark hair.

Her eyes met Dina’s, the latter expectant, and Ellie flushed hard, desire and vulnerability warring in her.

“Can I taste you?”

Her voice was quiet and Dina shuddered and then whispered, barely audible - “Yes.” And so Ellie parted her with her thumbs and leaned in. She kissed Dina - first her folds, and Dina gasped; and then the hard nub of her clit, and Dina whimpered. And then she lathed her tongue against her in a hot, wet stripe and Dina cried out, a hand over her mouth.

“Good?” Ellie whispered up to her, and Dina nodded frantically.

“More,” she whimpered, and so Ellie adjusted Dina’s legs on her shoulders and leaned in to take her clit into her mouth.

Dina was _loud_ , which Ellie had imagined if she was being honest with herself. But it was another thing entirely to hear her in person, somehow more profound: the rich timbre of her moans and her breathy gasps and her high-pitched cries as Ellie flicked her tongue against Dina’s clit.

Ellie nuzzled and kissed and sucked at Dina until she was quivering and gasping, rocking her hips, and whimpering Ellie’s name - and something like actual confidence thrummed through Ellie, though she had never imagined that feeling coming to her. Of course, she had never believed that this would happen in the first place…

Ellie withdrew to catch her breath, panting as she watched Dina writhe above her, gasping and flushed and naked and utterly beautiful. Something washed over Ellie - something calming - as she realized how many cards she happened to be holding. She pressed wet, open-mouthed kisses to the inside of Dina’s thigh and basked in her strangled noises of impatience. 

“What do you need?” Ellie whispered, voice low as she rubbed the length of one finger along the side of Dina’s clit.

“You know what I need,” Dina gasped, an edge of exasperation in her voice. Her hair was spread everywhere, dark and shining and beautiful, and her chest heaved, splashed with a dark red flush that spread from her neck down to the tops of her breasts.

“Tell me,” Ellie said simply, feeling almost drunk with power, and Dina whimpered. “Tell me where you need me.” And finally Dina reached down and Ellie’s brain almost stopped working right there, as she watched Dina touch herself -

“I need you inside me,” she whimpered, and her voice was _desperate_ , and her slick fingers met Ellie’s between her legs. And Ellie inhaled, and the “Yes” that came from her mouth was low and heavy and dark. Then Dina’s hands were on Ellie’s and she let Dina guide her, working at her own clit as she eased Ellie inside of her.

And she _rippled_ around Ellie and Ellie gasped, gasped at how strong and deep and wet she was, at how she arched her back off of the cushions and spread her legs wider and whimpered her name. Ellie could hardly breathe, could hardly process what was in front of her, how Dina writhed and gasped with her whole body, how she ran her hands reverently over where they were joined.

Whatever bravado Ellie had felt earlier now faded somewhat at the prospect of finding Dina’s own rhythm, of exploring the flesh under her fingers, and there was so _much_ to explore…

So she picked a tempo in her head, not unlike when she was preparing to play something on the guitar, and had to hear the music in her mind before she created it with her hands; and she replicated that tempo inside Dina’s body, waiting for her response.

Dina arched and gasped at her movements, and Ellie couldn’t stop the smile that came to her lips. “Like that?”

“A little...a little slower…”

“Yeah?” 

Dina trembled above her. “Yeah.” And then something broke in her composure, and she was grasping for Ellie - “Come up here now” - and Ellie obeyed, slanting her mouth over Dina’s. It was thrilling and jarring, to be inside her in both places, simultaneously - and Ellie gasped against Dina’s mouth and drank her in -

Ellie was lost in their kiss until Dina’s hips twitched and she clenched around Ellie’s fingers and whimpered her name, and Ellie realized that she had stopped moving.

“Shit, sorry…”

“It’s okay,” Dina murmured, grinning. “It’s okay, just -” And a high whimper escaped her throat as Ellie moved again, picking up the same pace that she had left off. She tried to maneuver her hand to stimulate Dina’s clit at the same time, but the angle was awkward and cramped, and she couldn’t do more than brush up against it with her thumb.

“Sorry -”

“I got it,” Dina gasped, reaching downwards, and Ellie thought her brain would short-circuit as she watched Dina’s practiced fingertips circling her clit, as she felt Dina’s body somehow take her fingers even deeper.

Dina tipped her head back and moaned now, loud and full as her body twitched. Ellie sucked and nibbled on her neck, making sure to keep up the same pace as she found Dina’s pulse point, her jaw, her mouth -

“Ellie,” she gasped, voice pitched high and tight, and it was the most beautiful sound that Ellie had ever heard - she craved it and Dina gave it to her, calling to her, as if having her inside Dina’s body wasn’t enough - “Ellie, Ellie, Ellie -”

“I’m here,” Ellie breathed, and she leaned closer, and Dina’s breath was the air around her, and her lips ghosted over her skin, featherlight and promising - “I’m here, Dina.”

Dina eased her own hand away, gasping - “Wanna try again?” - and Ellie took the hint immediately, pressing her thumb against Dina’s clit, trying to pick up on the same rhythm that she had been using. And Dina inhaled sharply - “Oh my _God_ -” and Ellie couldn’t believe her fucking _luck_ as she breathed against Dina’s hair - “That’s it -” and Dina whimpered and _gasped_ -

Dina’s breath hitched, and something dawned in her expression, something wide and momentous and almost surprised. She inhaled, and Ellie’s name was on her exhale, in a high gasp - and she gulped down air again and convulsed and moaned, high in her throat…

“Ellie, Ellie-” And her voice got higher and louder, and all the while she planted a hand on Ellie’s cheek and held her gaze and shook in her arms -

“I’m-...I’m-” And she gasped, high and breathy and loud, still rocking with Ellie’s thrusts, eyes fixed as if all the world were in front of her, and Ellie felt a flash of fear - she couldn’t mess this up now, she couldn’t drop this beautiful, fragile thing -

“Yeah?” Ellie whispered, eyes darting from Dina’s heaving chest to her own hand and back up to Dina’s quivering gaze, and Dina could only nod vigorously. “I know, I’ve got you -”

And Dina gripped her shoulders for dear life as she convulsed and quivered and a long, high moan left her mouth, and she almost looked _afraid_ for a second -

“Hey,” Ellie murmured, slowing her movements. “Hey, look at me.” Dina raised her wide gaze, gasping. Ellie tried to tamp all the nervousness out of her voice “I’ve got you, okay? You can let go.”

Dina paused for a beat, as if she had just realized where she was. And then - “Okay,” she replied, earnest, and then they were kissing, slow and soft. Dina whimpered into her mouth as Ellie continued to move, and that whimper picked up into a moan, a high, keening cry, as Dina’s hips jerked frantically and her nails dug into Ellie’s back -

And to Ellie it seemed to go on forever, as Dina shook and cried and quivered as Ellie whispered against her gasping mouth, soft and encouraging. Everything was hot and slick and tight and deep, and Ellie watched as the muscles in Dina’s abdomen twitched and quivered with each stroke, as her back arched and her face contorted in pleasure and she was _there_ and she _came_ in Ellie’s arms, and everything was high and bright and beautiful and so _much_ it almost _hurt_ -

Dina was gasping, and each exhale of her gasp was a whimper in the shape of Ellie’s name, and the tension leached out of her hands and her arms and her legs, twitching with small aftershocks as Ellie slowed and lengthened her thrusts - drawing everything out of Dina until she was practically boneless in Ellie’s arms, boneless and gasping and clinging to her…

And Ellie couldn’t help it. She smiled.

She smiled and rested her forehead against Dina’s, fingers still slick and sheathed inside her, waiting for nothing and everything, as Dina caught her breath.

A few moments passed, and then Dina spoke, shakily.

“I think I...I need a minute…”

She tipped her head back and took a deep, deep breath. Ellie dared to press a chaste kiss to her shoulder, lingering there absently as she watched Dina’s chest rise and fall. Finally, Dina looked back up at her, and her expression was so soft, so relaxed and open that Ellie couldn’t resist leaning in to peck her lips. Dina smiled against her mouth and rolled her hips a little, muscles fluttering around Ellie’s fingers.

Ellie inclined her head. “Can I -”

“Oh, yes, please...not that I don’t _love_ it...ah -” She twitched and hissed a little as Ellie withdrew slowly, then reached down and caught Ellie’s hand in hers and made to suck her fingers into her mouth.

“Ah, ah,” Ellie scolded, leaning back and basking in the reprieve of her confidence. “Mine.” 

“Asshole,” Dina murmured against Ellie’s cheek, pressing languid kisses there and traveling over to her mouth. “I wanna taste you next,” she breathed against Ellie’s lips, eyes hooded, and _that_ made Ellie shut up. 

“Well, catch your breath first,” she managed, and Dina rolled her eyes.

“I’ll have you know that I have _legendary_ stamina -”

“Uh-huh…”

“Don’t look at me like that -”

Ellie just glanced with significance at her now-clean fingers, but that was enough to get a rise out of Dina.

“Oh, like you’d do any better -”

“ _Prove_ it -”

“Watch me -”

And Dina _pushed_ Ellie back onto the couch so that she was horizontal, the sudden shift making the room spin. There was Dina’s body on top of her, heavy and solid. And that awkward newness was back, that feeling of not knowing what to do with her own body. Perhaps Ellie had imagined something like this so many times that, when it finally happened, her brain just refused to process it. She had imagined Dina in such intimate detail that suddenly having her under her hands, or her pushing Ellie down, was absolutely disarming. 

And then Dina was on top of her, rocking against her pelvis and her low belly, where her slick arousal smeared against Ellie’s skin. 

“Tell me what you want,” Dina murmured, reaching up to run her fingers through her hair as her hips rolled; and Ellie grasped for her waist, hands finding solid purchase on the very tops of her thighs. She watched Dina play with her own breasts, suck her own fingers into her mouth, writhing and flushed even after just coming - and Ellie couldn’t hide anymore, she just couldn’t, she _needed_ Dina -

“Kiss me,” Ellie gasped, and Dina grinned wickedly and then licked into her mouth, deep and wet and soft -

She didn’t linger on Ellie’s mouth, though. Her lips found Ellie’s jaw, her neck, the freckles that splattered along her collarbone. “God, you’re gorgeous…” Dina murmured and nibbled at Ellie’s skin, and Ellie sensed that maybe Dina was just as floored by her body as she had been by Dina’s.

“Let’s get these off, hmm?” Dina snuck a fingertip under the waistband of Ellie’s underwear and Ellie groaned, knowing she would now pay for her teasing. And she was right - as soon as she was naked in Dina’s arms, Dina teased her with her fingertips, tracing the contours of her folds, just barely circling her clit -

Ellie gasped and ran her hands through Dina’s hair as if she was in a trance. “Fuck…”

Dina hummed and licked her neck. “Is this good, baby?” Ellie whimpered at the endearment. 

“Yes yes yes…”

And then Dina’s voice was low now, barely a whisper. “You want me to fuck you?”

And Ellie inhaled sharply, anticipation curling acutely in her stomach. “Yes, Dina, please -”

Dina hummed and kissed her neck and parted her with her fingers, murmuring appreciatively at how wet and warm she was, as Ellie let her legs fall open even wider -

She felt so exposed, watching Dina watch her own hand, as it touched and lingered and explored and finally, _finally_ dipped inside of her.

And it was one thing to fill Dina - soft and open and warm and beautiful - but it was another thing entirely to be filled by her - to feel whole and complete and _seen_ and loved -

And where Dina was loud, she let Ellie be languid and quiet as they rocked together, breathing each other in. Ellie wound her arms around Dina’s neck and tangled her fingers in her hair, brushing it to one side so that it tumbled down her back.

“Help me out here?” Dina murmured, smiling, and Ellie immediately reached down to rub circles against her own clit, gasps coming a little faster, clenching gently around Dina’s fingers.

And then Dina’s breath was hot in Ellie’s ear - “Do you think about me when you touch yourself?”

Oh _God_ if only she knew - and there was no hiding this anymore, not here and now, when Dina had Ellie spread out underneath her, gasping and writhing -

“Yes,” Ellie gasped against her mouth - “Yes, so much -” and Dina’s laugh was low, vibrating, sinking through Ellie’s chest and all the way down to her heart. 

“I think about you,” Dina whispered, and Ellie thought she might _die_ right there - “I think about you touching me and fucking me and making me come -”

“ _God_ , Dina -”

“I wanna come on your tongue next, baby, I want your mouth -”

“ _Fuck_ -” And Ellie jolted and something arced in her, hot white pleasure that was almost _too much_ -

Dina withdrew slightly - “All good?” - and Ellie gasped for a second, stilling Dina’s hand with hers. “Just...just give me…” It was like her body had forgotten how to breathe deeply. “Give me a second…”

She sagged a little in Dina’s arms, and Dina pressed a soft line of kisses along her temple and into her hair. “You want it slower?” she whispered against Ellie’s ear, dragging her thumb through Ellie’s pubic hair absently.

“Maybe,” Ellie murmured. “We can try that.” And Dina smiled down at her - a real, genuine, soft smile - and her fingers restarted their movements. Ellie whimpered, joining her again with her own circles -

“Better?” Dina murmured, and Ellie nodded, letting the sensations wash over her, leaning into Dina a little harder, and Dina smiled softly and nibbled Ellie’s neck…

“Yes,” Ellie breathed. “Yes, yes…” Her hips twitched, and Dina curled her fingers, stroking inside, and something in Ellie’s body _sang_ and some disbelieving part of her was silent for once, silent because this was actually happening -

Dina’s voice was hot and breathy against her ear again - “Can you come for me? Come on my fingers, baby” - and there was something about the encouragement, Dina's request, that flipped something inside Ellie and left her gasping and shaking as her orgasm crashed into her. It was sudden and roaring as a strangled moan left Ellie’s lips, alongside Dina’s name -

But Dina hadn’t stopped talking, or moving - she went deeper, faster, and her voice was still in Ellie’s ear, deliciously encouraging - 

“Come on baby, can you come again? Come on -”

“Oh _fuck_ -”

And one hand left Dina’s hair and pressed up against the arm of the couch, anything to stabilize herself. Dina just kept going and Ellie’s body _responded_ , twitching and seizing, and this time a real moan was wrenched from Ellie’s mouth, and a string of curses, as her body went taut like a fishing line - and then it broke and seized and Dina’s name was in Ellie’s mouth and Ellie’s name was in Dina’s, and all Ellie could do was shudder and twitch and pant and let go, let go, let go -

And then Dina’s face filled her vision, her wide brown eyes and her wild dark hair and her flushed cheeks dotted with hundreds of freckles, _constellations_ of freckles. It was all Ellie could do not to kiss her right there.

Instead, she sagged back against the cushions, breathing hard and twitching as Dina withdrew from her body. A triumphant smile was plastered across Dina’s face as she leaned against the couch. 

“I’ve _always_ wanted to try that,” Dina chuckled as she licked her fingers.

Ellie stayed prone, panting. “Fuck you.”

“Already did that.”

Ellie buried her face in her hands. “Ugh.”

“I believe the score is...two to one? With me winning?”

“Oh okay, you’re asking for it now -” And Ellie made to sit up but swayed slightly, as the blood rushed down from her head - “Once I, _fuck_ , once I can see straight again…” But then Dina just laughed and was pressing against her again, pressing her down into the cushions…

Ellie’s brain was fuzzy and sluggish, but somehow Dina ended up in her arms again, and that made her hum pleasantly. Everything was soft and tender and still, Ellie could hardly breathe at the newness of it all. She stroked Dina’s back, and then Dina caught one of her hands and started running her fingers over Ellie’s knuckles.

“Your hands are beautiful,” she murmured absently, and Ellie flushed, looking anywhere but Dina’s eyes. But Dina pressed her lips to the back of Ellie’s right hand, first behind her palm and then over her tattooed wrist, and her eyes were so dark and singularly focused that Ellie couldn’t look away.

And then Dina threaded their fingers together over Ellie’s stomach and propped herself up on her free hand - just watching Ellie. Her stomach flipped - it felt strange to just be watched.

“So, tonight...are you still going sledding?”

Dina looked up, contemplative. “I did promise Astrid,” she murmured absently. One eyebrow quirked. “You still gonna play guitar for me?”

“If you want,” Ellie replied. Her eyes darted to the side.

“Good,” Dina murmured, looping one arm around Ellie’s shoulder and pulling her closer. “I wanna see what else those hands can do.”

Ellie shoved her own head into the cushions. “ _Dina_.”

“What?” Dina replied innocently, one fingertip tracing Ellie’s jaw to draw her back out. She leaned close, breath ghosting over Ellie’s lips - “You love it” - and then they were kissing again, slower and softer, both familiar and still so new - and Dina yielded under Ellie’s touch and let her push her back down into the cushions.

“I could kiss you forever,” Ellie murmured, mouthing against Dina’s neck, pressing wet, warm kisses there. Dina’s fingertips ghosted over her back. She kissed Ellie’s shoulder and arched, and a sweet sound - like a gasp tinged with a cry - left her open mouth.

“You want more?” Ellie murmured against Dina’s lips, and Dina just smiled. 

“What else are we gonna do down here?”

Ellie ended up between Dina’s legs again, where Dina was still wet and pliant. Dina ran her fingers down her stomach and found Ellie’s hands and threaded them together, rolling her hips slowly against Ellie’s mouth.

“Gentle, baby,” she whimpered, and Ellie softened, lathing her tongue over Dina’s clit. At some point Ellie replaced her tongue with her fingers, working in a soft, consistent rhythm while she kissed Dina’s folds with the same singular attention she paid to Dina’s mouth.

It wasn’t long before quiet little cries were issuing from Dina’s throat, each still wrapped in a gasp - some barely forming the first syllable of Ellie’s name, some just issued into the air. Ellie imagined they were like soft, perfect little clouds that floated above them as she pleasured Dina and brought her to another high -

“Come for me,” Ellie eventually murmured against her skin, and Dina gasped and whimpered and a “Yes, yes Ellie” left her mouth - but that was the loudest sound she made. Part of Ellie wondered at how she could be so soft and delicate when she came, when everything had been loud and frantic before - and the other part continued to work Dina’s clit with her fingers, and plunged her tongue as deep inside Dina as possible...

Dina shook and shuddered and seized and Ellie brought her down gently, listening to the melody of her name on Dina’s lips - “Ellie, Ellie, oh my god, Ellie” - as she dipped inside her slowly with her fingers to coax her through her aftershocks. She didn’t move until Dina had quieted, and then she kissed Dina’s belly and worked her way back up her body, dropping kisses down onto her skin. 

And then they were face to face again, with Ellie hovering over her.

“And now we’re tied.” In spite of all her previous nerves, Ellie felt a smug grin come to her face, and Dina just rolled her eyes and groaned. She forcefully twisted to the left so that they were both on their sides, facing each other.

“You’re still insufferable,” she gasped, scooting closer against Ellie’s side as she caught her breath. Ellie just hummed, one hand going to play with Dina’s hair.

“Glad you didn’t go back out into that blizzard?”

“I suppose,” Dina sighed, and then Ellie tipped her jaw up and their lips met again, chaste and soft this time. “Glad you kissed me back?”

It took Ellie’s brain a second to catch up to what she was referencing, and then - “Ah! Yeah, I really do not regret that now.”

Dina chuckled - “I was wondering when I’d get through to you” - and now it was Ellie’s turn to roll her eyes. “Well now you know for sure, right?” Dina continued, as she gently fixed a lock of hair behind Ellie’s ear. 

Ellie exhaled through her nose and leaned into Dina’s touch. She studied Dina’s soft gaze, the genuine way she looked up at her, the open vulnerability in her eyes. 

“Yeah,” Ellie said, and she turned her head to kiss Dina’s palm. “Yeah, I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do I think it's realistic to give someone multiple orgasms the first time you sleep with them? Absolutely not. Will that stop me from including it in the story? Also no.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dina and Ellie come home drunk (er, tipsy). Everything is soft and silly and sweet and they love each other a whole lot. 
> 
> Seventeen-year-old JJ is slightly annoyed, but hey, his parents deserve the night off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who needs some sweet sweet escapism? I know I do.
> 
> Chapter-specific tags: recreational drug use, smut (but purely happy smut this time!).

The familiar street stretches out in front of them, and Ellie ponders the possibility of fishing her key ring out of her pocket without letting go of Dina’s hand.

Both of their hands won’t fit in the coat pocket together - she’s tried that already, tuning out Dina’s giggles and exasperation - so instead, Ellie tries to reach across her body to the pocket with her opposite hand. The motion makes her upper body turn, and to her frustration, the pocket in question moves _further_ away from her - so Ellie reaches further, again and again -

“Babe.” Dina’s voice comes from somewhere next to her. “Baby, did you forget how to walk straight?” And then Dina’s other hand is on her arm, stopping her, and Ellie looks up.

Dina is watching her, eyes wide, playful smile on her lips. They are almost wrapped around each other - Ellie’s circuitous attempt to get at her keys has pulled Dina flush against her side. “Just trying to get my keys,” Ellie murmurs apologetically, and with a roll of her eyes Dina reaches over and retrieves them easily.

“These things?” she says, dangling them in front of Ellie. Ellie reaches for them, but then Dina breaks out of her grip and dances away. 

“Dinaaaa,” Ellie whines. 

Dina saunters up to her, one hand on her hip, keys held aloft. “Say ‘thank you’,” she murmurs, coy, and Ellie grumbles. But she gets Dina back by kissing her breathless, and then plucking the keys out of her loose fingers.

“Say ‘you’re welcome’,” Ellie adds slyly as she pulls Dina, still dazed, up to their front porch.

None of this charisma prevents Ellie from fumbling over the lock in the darkness. “This is stupid. Why do we have keys anyways? We all live behind massive walls.” Behind her, Dina snorts into her hand.

The door finally opens into the soft, warm glow of the house, and Ellie steps over the threshold at the exact moment that JJ bounds down the stairs, backpack over his shoulder, shaking his hair out of his eyes.

“Back right on time!” Ellie says pointedly, rolling up one sleeve and brandishing her wrist.

JJ raises his eyebrows, a smile curling along his mouth - “Your watch is broken” - and follows Dina to the couch, where she sinks into the cushions with a sigh. He kisses her cheek and looks at her with humorous exasperation written all over his face. “You said you were going out for _one_ drink.”

“This _is_ one drink,” Dina giggles. “Did you get dinner?”

JJ stretches, lanky and casual. “Got it handled. Wren’s mom always gives me third helpings of everything anyways.”

Dina ponders this for a second. “El, can you remind me to finish up that embroidery for Amanda this week?” Dina plucks a barely-visible piece of lint from JJ’s sweater, and then smooths it over with her hand.

Dina stands up to hug JJ - he has to lean over slightly for her to rest her chin on his shoulder - and then stretches, suppressing a yawn behind her palm. “And it’s time for me to go crash.”

JJ chuckles. “It’s, like, eight in the evening.”

Ellie makes shoo’ing motions with her hands. “We’re old! Go have fun. We won’t burn down the house.”

Humored disbelief is written all over JJ’s features, but he still raises a hand in farewell. “If you say so.”

He’s off the porch when Ellie leans out the door and yells - “Make good choices, kiddo!” The sound of JJ’s scoff can probably be heard down the whole street. 

Ellie slides down the closed door until she sits, one leg bent and the other straight out in front of her. She looks up at Dina with big eyes, biting her lip. “Do you think we’re a bad influence?” 

Dina sits down next to her, leaning into her body. One hand goes to Ellie’s bent knee, and the other reaches over to straighten the rumpled collar of Ellie’s shirt. “I think we’re allowed to have fun.”

Ellie frowns. “Do you think he thinks we’re not cool anymore?”

“Babe…” Dina speaks around her smile; she licks her fingers and rubs at a spot of dirt on Ellie’s jaw.

Ellie continues, voice pitching in her explanation. “He keeps giving me shit about my trading card collection that he found last week!”

Dina giggles. “I’ve been giving you shit about that for years. Clearly he thinks I’m the cool parent.”

Ellie drops the thread of conversation and snuggles into the curve of Dina’s neck. “Can we sleep down here tonight?” Her voice is heavy with exhaustion, though Dina knows that some of it is for show.

“No, baby.” Dina pats her thigh. Ellie grumbles, but willingly stands, pushing off of the door with her upper back, all lanky grace. She takes Dina’s hands in her own and pulls her up with a grunt, and then groans pathetically as Dina tries to orient her towards the staircase.

“Come on, handsome,” Dina murmurs, mouth curling into a smile. She keeps her hands in Ellie’s and walks back, tugging Ellie along like an unwilling child.

Ellie whines. “This is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Ever. In my life. How are you walking backwards?”

“I’m magic,” Dina says through her smile. “Watch -”

And then Dina’s body goes out from under Ellie - she trips on the first stair, and ends up half-falling backwards, sitting on the staircase. Ellie lets go of her and catches herself with her hands on the stairs, hovering over Dina.

Dina bursts into laughter. It starts out as a contained thing, since she has balled herself up against the staircase; but then she stretches her legs out and runs her hands through her hair and giggles. Ellie brushes Dina’s bangs out of her face, eyes wide in momentary concern.

“You okay babe?”

“Yes,” Dina wheezes. “Yes, yes, yes.” Satisfied that she isn’t hurt, Ellie chuckles with her. She lowers herself so that her body rests between Dina’s legs, her arms still bracketing Dina’s torso on the staircase. “You are _definitely_ not magic,” Ellie snorts. She rests her elbows on the stair under Dina’s shoulders and leans in to kiss her neck.

In response, Dina slaps her arm playfully. “Fuck you.” 

Ellie murmurs something absently against her skin. 

“What was that?”

“I said, ‘That can be arranged’,” Ellie slurs, a loopy smile on her face.

Dina scoffs. “You don’t wanna walk upstairs but you wanna have sex?”

“We could do it on the kitchen island again, I cleaned it today -”

“That’s exactly _why_ we shouldn’t do it on the kitchen island, oh my God. And we’re too drunk, baby.” 

“We had one drink. We are _tipsy_ ,” Ellie clarifies, mouth now pressed against Dina’s sternum. Dina leans back, resting on the staircase as best she can, and runs her hands absently through Ellie’s hair.

A beat passes, or two, and then the playful part of Dina’s brain lights up. “Hey, babe.” 

Ellie has been nuzzling between Dina’s breasts, but now she crawls up, so that their eyes meet and their noses are inches apart. Ellie’s arms bracket Dina’s shoulders.

Dina smirks. “Should we get high?”

Comprehension breaks over Ellie’s face and she sniggers. “I thought you’d never ask.”

With some scrambling and lots of laughing, they right themselves on the staircase, get their feet under them, and make their way to their bedroom.

It’s a warm summer night, and the windows have been left open. Dina sees Ellie’s eyes dart around rapidly as they enter, and she rubs her back absently before leading her in by the hand. A breeze catches the curtains and they flutter gently into the room.

Ellie drifts to the window seat as Dina digs through one of her drawers. She returns with a tin and a lighter - from the tin she produces a joint, which she places between Ellie’s lips with a smile. Then with an old, practiced motion, she ignites the lighter, admiring how the flame paints the angles of Ellie’s face in orange.

Joint lit, Ellie takes a hit and leans back in the window seat, resting one elbow on the sill and exhaling through her nose. Her socked feet hook under Dina’s calves and pull her closer, smiling as Dina kisses her knee before tangling their legs together.

Dina absently rubs the windowsill. “When was the last time we did this?”

“Mmm. Someone’s birthday?” Ellie takes another drag and leans over to the open window, watching the smoke curl as it leaves her mouth. “Remember Alice had that weird stuff that I’m pretty sure made you _actually_ hallucinate?” She holds out the joint.

Dina takes it and scoffs. “Please.”

“You said there were elephants walking on the ceiling, babe. Like I said, hallucinating.”

Dina rolls her eyes, holding the joint between her lips and letting Ellie pull her back against her body. They arrange themselves so that they are parallel to the window, and Dina leans into the curve of Ellie’s body, angling to look outside.

The moon is high and bright by now, throwing shadows into their room. Dina angles her hand and watches the moonlight paint her skin silver and glint off of her wedding band. She’s passed the joint back to Ellie, who now leans over to the window, exhales a plume of smoke, and leans back.

They pass the joint back and forth a few more times, murmuring to each other absently. Then Dina leans her elbows on the windowsill, pillows her head in her arms and sighs happily as Ellie traces her back with her free hand. Minutes pass - a couple or more, neither can tell - and then Dina reaches over and tugs on Ellie’s shirt. 

“Come look at the stars with me, baby.”

Ellie complies, wrapping her arms around Dina’s waist and leaning forward. Their angle is a little awkward because of the window, but Ellie can see the red star of Antares, and the beginning of Scorpio. She points this out to Dina, who has to shift into Ellie’s lap and sight down her arm to find it.

Dina’s mouth quirks. “Thought you hated astrology.”

Ellie pulls back from kissing Dina’s neck to give her side-eye. Dina shrugs. “Or at least said it wasn’t real.”

“Maybe I’ve gone soft in my old age,” Ellie murmurs, plucking the joint from Dina’s hands. Dina smiles softly.

Ellie takes a particularly long drag, then brings one hand to rest against Dina’s jaw. Dina leans into her touch before letting herself be drawn forward. “C’mere,” Ellie murmurs, and Dina follows her touch, leaning in to slant her mouth over Ellie’s. 

It’s slow and tender and Dina feels the smoke leaving Ellie’s lungs and entering hers, and she inhales, smiling against Ellie’s mouth. She dips her head to exhale and nuzzle Ellie’s chest. Then Ellie’s arms are around her again, pulling her so that her back is flush against Ellie's chest. 

Some time passes - Dina is enjoying the slow rhythm of Ellie’s breathing and her lulling, sweet high - and then with no warning Ellie’s fingers dance lightly over Dina’s ribcage. Dina hisses, body drawing up.

“Baby,” she groans in mock exasperation, as she feels Ellie chuckle behind her and murmur an apology. Ellie is extra touchy when she’s high - her arms circle Dina’s waist and her mouth finds Dina’s neck, and Dina can’t help but tip her head back and bare more skin to be touched.

And then Ellie’s clever fingers are at it again, this time over Dina’s belly; Dina inhales sharply and giggles and gasps. Her right arm jerks backwards on instinct, and knocks into the guitar that Ellie has propped next to the window seat.

“Oh -”

Ellie snags it out of the air, and a long, relieved sigh leaves Dina’s body.

“Oops,” she murmurs apologetically to Ellie, who just shrugs.

“It’s alright,” she says absently. Ellie places the joint on the windowsill, picks up the guitar, and tugs Dina closer, encouraging her to sit back further between her legs. Ellie places the guitar in front of both of them, so that the body rests across Dina’s lap. The fretboard extends into the well of the window.

Dina folds her arms up to stay out of Ellie’s way, as Ellie reaches around her body to thumb the low E string. On instinct, Ellie starts tuning, humming against Dina’s neck. She absently presses small kisses to Dina’s skin, still humming as she goes, and Dina smiles and feels like maybe she is an instrument too.

She voices this, and Ellie’s chuckle reverberates through Dina’s chest. Ellie nips at Dina’s neck playfully and murmurs something about making beautiful music that makes Dina roll her eyes.

Finally satisfied, Ellie runs her left hand along the fretboard, absently picking out a melody. It's a soft and lingering thing, and Dina imagines it curling up into the night and floating around them. Dina watches Ellie’s fingers work over the fretboard, all long practiced grace despite two missing implements. She stumbles at a couple of points, cursing under her breath before repeating the phrase - a little slower, in a different rhythm, with a different fingering. Again and again, as long as it takes.

God, does Dina love her.

“This is a new one,” Ellie murmurs apologetically against Dina’s hair. Dina just snuggles further into Ellie’s body.

She’s almost drifting away in Ellie’s arms when she hears Ellie scoff. “I can’t believe I’m not better at playing guitar when I’m high.”

Dina frowns - “I think it sounds perfect” - and just Ellie chuckles in return.

“Sing me something?”

She can’t see Ellie’s face from this angle, but she can picture her lips pressed into a line, thinking back through her mental catalog of songs - reordered and deconstructed and augmented as she’s learned them all over again, familiar things made new.

Ellie sucks in a breath and reorients herself slightly. Dina can feel her picking a tempo in her head, and then she leans into the music. It’s a simple, sweet melody that meanders around them, with nowhere to go and nothing to worry about.

The song sits in a lower part of Ellie’s range, and she alternates between humming and singing. Dina is lulled by the purposeful expansion of her chest when she breathes, the rise and fall of her voice.

Maybe Dina really does drift off then, because she comes back to herself in the last phrase of the song. Her head is resting on Ellie’s chest; she inhales, and feels Ellie’s cheek brush against her forehead.

“Didn’t mean to bore you,” Ellie murmurs, and Dina can hear the smile in her tone. She frowns regardless.

“Not boring,” she mumbles against Ellie’s neck, taking another deep breath. In fact, it’s given her ideas.

Gently, Dina pries the guitar out of Ellie’s hands and sets it back down next to the window seat. She slides from her sitting position, one hand intertwined with Ellie’s. At Ellie’s questioning gaze, she tugs.

“Baby, I wanna _dance_.” Dina doesn’t have the energy to be embarrassed at her insistence. Ellie’s expression is questioning.

“I can’t dance and play at the same time, babe.”

As if that changes anything. Dina tugs again. “Then we’ll dance to imaginary music.”

Finally, Ellie gets to her feet, although the exasperation doesn’t quite leave her face. “ _Imaginary_ …” But she takes Dina in her arms anyways, one arm rounding her waist and the other taking her hand. 

They cut a slow, long arc across the room, automatically settling into a rhythm and tempo that they both know. Dina brushes her nose against Ellie’s, smiling as their lips ghost past each other until Ellie leans forward incrementally and kisses her. They linger like that, with their mouths pressed together softly, just drinking each other in.

Finally, Dina pecks Ellie’s lips and leans back slightly, the ghost of a smirk shining through her soft expression. “I can’t believe you still remember these steps.”

“What steps?”

And Ellie laughs at Dina’s narrowed eyes. She rests her forehead against Dina’s, and her tone is placating and soft. “Of course I remember, baby.” Dina rolls her eyes and buries her head against Ellie’s neck.

A few minutes later, Dina’s socked feet slip on the hardwood floor, and Ellie catches her, one arm firmly around her back. “That was definitely _not_ part of our wedding dance,” Ellie says, smirking.

“Shut up,” Dina replies through a chuckle.

Eventually, Dina’s arms wind around Ellie’s neck, Ellie’s around Dina’s waist. They abandon their prescribed pattern in favor of simply swaying together. Dina absently presses kisses up Ellie’s neck, and Ellie inclines her head to nuzzle against Dina’s ear. 

At some point Ellie sighs heavily, and Dina pulls back, brows drawn. “What?”

Ellie’s gaze is soft, and she bites her lip. There’s a ghost of a smile on her face, and her voice is wistful when she speaks. “Why can’t I marry you again?”

Dina chuckles. “What?”

Ellie’s face opens in earnestness. “I wanna do it all over again.”

Dina smiles up at her, tamping down her own confusion. “Why?”

Ellie’s expression is soft in memory. “Because you were so fucking beautiful that day.”

Dina can’t resist - “Am I not beautiful anymore?!” - and Ellie immediately backtracks - “No, no, babe -” 

Dina just chuckles, until Ellie frames Dina’s face in her hands and meets her eyes, suddenly serious. “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I swear.”

Dina’s mouth forms into an ‘O’ in surprise, but before she can react, Ellie just pulls Dina flush against her, so that there is barely any space between them. She buries her face against Dina’s neck and sighs. Dina lets go of her surprise and nuzzles her.

Ellie’s voice is muffled when she speaks. “I want you to know how much I love you.”

“Baby.” Dina is incredulous, as she withdraws slightly and holds Ellie’s face in her hands. “You don’t have to marry me again to tell me that.”

“But I _want_ to. I wanna do something for you.”

Dina blinks, brows drawn, and wraps her arms back around Ellie. “This is more than enough, love. I promise.” Ellie sighs and gives her a soft smile, and for the moment Dina is satisfied.

They sway like that, drifting around their room, whispering to each other and giggling, but it’s clear that Ellie’s mind is still somewhere else. Dina draws her close with a light touch on her jaw - Ellie rubs their noses together and then looks sideways, gathering her thoughts.

She meets Dina’s eyes. “What about…” Ellie’s brain scrambles for the term she knows she’s forgetting. “What about renewing vows?”

“Not really a thing for Jewish weddings,” Dina says, shrugging. “We didn’t take vows.”

“What?!” Ellie’s exclamation catches Dina off-guard, and Dina scrambles to reply, past the humor that Ellie hasn’t made this connection yet. 

“Yeah, babe, that’s what the blessings are for -” But Ellie has let go of her and strides towards her bedside table, flicking on the lamp, leaving Dina still standing with her arms up, feeling silly.

“What’re you doing?”

Ellie fishes out her journal and a pen and sits on the edge of the bed, flipping to an empty page. “I’m writing down vows for my wife!” Then she pauses, pen held aloft, concern suddenly on her face. “This isn’t gonna, like, annul our marriage or something, right?”

Dina chuckles - “I think we’re okay” - and then walks up to Ellie, one hand held out expectantly. When Ellie looks confused, Dina just snaps her fingers. “You aren’t the only one writing vows here, babe.” 

Ellie grins crookedly and tears out a blank sheet, and Dina claims a spot on the window seat to write.

Even with the weed and the lack of sleep, sweet and silly and suitable things come to them both, in no time at all.

Familiar nerves thrum in Ellie, and Dina’s “Ready?” pulls her out of a stupor. Dina stands by the window, free hand beckoning. 

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Ellie replies, and she pads over to Dina, journal held in one hand. Dina takes her other hand, kissing her knuckles.

“Hi.”

Ellie can hardly contain the laugh that starts in the back of her throat. “Hey, babe.”

“This is serious!” Dina scolds, eyebrows raised, but her mouth is curled into a mischievous smile.

Ellie takes a deep, steadying breath. She tries to start - “Dina” - and then she collapses into giggles. Dina grins with her. Ellie purses her lips, trying to regain some semblance of composure, and clears her throat. 

“First, I have to apologize for overwatering your garden -” Dina grins behind her hand. “And I vow to never do that again.”

“My poor, poor tomatoes,” Dina murmurs.

Ellie raises her eyebrows and tries to inject some formality into her voice. “I promise that I will do my best not to get hurt while doing totally necessary things, like building a treehouse in our backyard.”

“ _Totally_ necessary,” Dina repeats, biting her lower lip and smiling.

“I will always make you tea when you’re tired -”

“Chamomile,” Dina adds, and Ellie winks at her.

“I will always dance with you, to real or _imaginary_ music -” Ellie raises her eyebrows for emphasis, and Dina just rolls her eyes.

Then Ellie steps closer, voice pitching down, and Dina’s expression softens. “I will always wait for you…” And Dina’s eyes are shining -

“...Especially when you take an extra half-hour at the butcher’s.” Dina buries her face in Ellie’s chest and groans.

“And! And,” Ellie continues insistently. Her voice softens, and when Dina looks up at her, her gaze is open and earnest. 

“I promise that I will be honest with you. I will stay with you, and with our family.” Ellie’s brows knit together. “I do not deserve you,” she continues, and Dina bites her lip at that. “Especially since you tolerate all my stupid puns.”

“They’re brilliant.” Dina’s laugh is watery, and Ellie smiles with her.

“You are an incredible mother to our son,” Ellie continues, voice catching. Dina rubs Ellie’s hand between hers. “You are the most beautiful person in the world.”

“Obviously,” Dina says, scoffing even as tears drip down her cheeks.

“And…” Ellie flips the page with a dramatic flourish. “The greatest lay of my life.”

At this, Dina snorts and doubles over. She stands back up and fans at her tear-stained face. “The last one really seals the deal,” she giggles. “Not sure how I’ll follow that.”

“Lay it on me, babe,” Ellie says, grinning. She slips her journal under one arm and holds Dina’s hand in hers, as Dina holds aloft her torn sheet of paper.

“Ellie.”

“Yes?”

Dina starts laughing before she can stop herself, her composure in tatters. 

“This is _serious_ , babe,” Ellie chides, and Dina rolls her eyes. She clears her throat and continues.

“I promise that I will never again leave your guitar by an open window when it rains.”

Ellie’s eyes dart sideways, remembering. “Oh yeah, that was a bad call.”

“I will stop breaking so many jars, accidentally or otherwise.”

“You _do_ have a tendency to do that.”

Dina eyes her, and murmurs a soft “Shut up”; Ellie just grins in reply.

Dina takes a breath and exhales shakily now, stepping closer. Her voice is soft, and Ellie’s grin is replaced by something more subdued.

Dina’s voice shakes. “I will listen to you, even if I don’t immediately understand. I will trust you, to tell me when you need help.” Ellie nods, her brows knitting together.

Dina presses her forehead to Ellie’s, and they sway back and forth. “I will love you,” she murmurs, and then swallows hard. “For the rest of my life, and for whatever comes after.”

Ellie’s eyes are shining now too, and her hands firm around Dina’s. They inhale each other for a moment.

“...And that’s all I wrote down,” Dina finishes awkwardly, giggling again. Ellie’s eyes are soft as she blinks away her own tears. “Do we kiss now?” 

Ellie’s “Yes” in reply is simple and immediate, as if there is no other option. In one smooth motion, she tosses her journal onto the window seat, frames Dina’s face in her hands, and kisses her full on the mouth. 

Everything is slow and soft, and Dina whimpers as tears leak out of the corners of her eyes. She leans away slightly to see Ellie’s face twisted with emotion, and then she is pulled back in, overwhelmed in warmth and love. They press each other closer, as if they could somehow fuse into one being.

Ellie mumbles something against her mouth, and Dina finds it in herself to pull back back. “Huh?”

“Do we consummate our vow renewal?” Ellie’s eyes are bright, not just with tears but with energy now, and her hair is mussed, and a blush stretches across the bridge of her nose. There’s a roguish grin on her face, and Dina smiles to match it, heart fluttering at how _handsome_ she is.

Dina wrestles for control of herself, lowering her voice to something sultry as she leans up to kiss the side of Ellie’s mouth. “Are you tired?”

Ellie hums against Dina’s mouth, contemplating this for a minute. And then her whole persona changes, as she brushes Dina’s jaw and makes Dina look up at her. “I’m not tired,” she rumbles, and then she all but devours Dina’s mouth, all wet heat and anticipation.

Dina is gasping when they come up for air. “Take me to bed,” she demands, voice low and promising, and she fists her hands in Ellie’s shirt and pulls.

They fall back onto the mattress together. Their kiss is deep and full and would usually disarm Dina if she wasn’t so intent on fighting with the buttons on her own shirt. Ellie helps her, pressing her mouth to every inch of bare skin that’s revealed, sucking bruises that, in Ellie’s opinion, go very well with her freckles.

Dina is almost naked when she realizes that Ellie’s clothes are hardly off, and she takes it upon herself to right this injustice. She straddles Ellie, kissing her again - a little slower this time - as she works at Ellie’s own buttons. Dina finds a languid rhythm and rocks her hips, trying to temper their passion into something a little more sustainable. It seems to work - soon they are both naked and Ellie is gasping and sighing beneath her, legs open, smoothing her hands up and down Dina’s back.

Dina pushes her into the mattress for good measure, nipping and nuzzling at Ellie’s neck. Ellie whimpers and spreads her legs wider, hands still on Dina’s hips.

Dina withdraws to look down, brushing a lock of hair out of Ellie’s face, wiping a tear track from her cheek as she considers Ellie’s open, earnest expression. “Will you let me take care of you?” Dina murmurs, and Ellie’s gasped “Yes” ignites something in Dina that makes her lean down and slant her mouth over Ellie’s. Ellie is panting when they break apart, and whining and whimpering as Dina descends her body.

When Dina’s lips brush Ellie’s thigh, she looks up - Ellie breathes heavily, mouth open, and she watches Dina lick a hot, wet stripe between her legs. A strangled sound grows and dies in Ellie’s throat, and Dina chuckles. She nuzzles Ellie’s thigh and waits for her to meet her eyes again.

“Look at me, baby,” Dina murmurs, voice low. She keeps her eyes trained on Ellie’s as she leans in to taste her again, and Ellie’s whimper is a sweet sound.

“I want you to come, okay?” Dina murmurs, lips brushing Ellie’s skin. “I know you can do that for me.” When Ellie nods vigorously, Dina smiles and kisses her between her legs again.

Ellie gently runs her hands through Dina’s hair, as Dina shifts her legs over her shoulders. She kisses Ellie’s thighs until Ellie begs her to return to where she needs her; she sucks at Ellie’s clit until Ellie is gasping and rocking her hips and crying out.

Finally, Dina eases inside her with two fingers, slow and gentle. Ellie keens and seizes around her, and Dina doesn’t give her a chance to relax before she’s hovering over her, already moving inside her and working at her clit. Ellie gasps shakily, and then gives herself over to Dina’s ministrations.

“Yes, El, yes,” Dina whispers. “You deserve to feel good, you know that, right?” Ellie cries out softly, watching her. “So good,” Dina murmurs, working her fingers. “My beautiful girl is so, so good.”

Ellie cries out again as Dina nuzzles at her neck - her hips rock desperately against Dina’s hand and she whimpers, against Dina’s mouth when she kisses her; against Dina’s neck and chest. 

It builds and builds and builds, and then Ellie is shaking beneath her. “Dina -” Ellie inhales with a sharp gasp.

“You’re perfect, Ellie, I promise. I love you so much, my sweet, brave girl -” With one free hand on Ellie’s breast, Dina descends her body with her mouth, and Ellie inhales sharply, panting now, Dina’s name on her lips. Her hips twitch and she clenches around Dina’s fingers -

“Yes, yes, yes,” Dina whimpers. “Let me feel it, baby. You’re right there, let me feel it -”

And Ellie cries and jerks, Dina’s name on her lips again - “Dina, Dina, don’t stop” - and Dina sucks her clit into her mouth and hums and Ellie spasms -

Ellie is shaking and coming and Dina doesn’t let up, doesn’t stop until every last quiver leaves her body, until Dina’s name is just exhales from Ellie’s mouth.

The room spins a little and Ellie has to breathe deeply to make it steady again. Dina rubs her belly, fingers still buried inside of her - she leans down and runs her tongue along the creases of Ellie’s thighs, over where Dina’s fingers sink into Ellie’s flesh, gentle over her clit.

Ellie tries to gain back some composure as Dina slowly slips out of her and licks her fingers. She crawls up Ellie’s body, straddling her and nuzzling her hair. “Good, baby?” she murmurs, and Ellie plants a kiss on her sternum, still panting.

“So good,” Ellie murmurs, mouthing Dina’s neck. “So, so good,” and Dina chuckles.

Dina is rocking on Ellie’s thigh now, making soft little content noises, and the sight lights a little fire in Ellie even as she comes down. She sits up and her arms round Dina’s body automatically, as she nuzzles against Dina’s neck. She presses chaste little kisses there absently, soft and meandering. She sucks marks against Dina’s skin and nuzzles the bruises she leaves behind.

Finally, her mouth finds Dina’s and Ellie kisses her deeply, hands now kneading her hips, encouraging Dina to rock against her. The moonlight lights up her body as much as it casts it in shadow, and Ellie beams at how beautiful she is.

“I wanna make you feel good, baby,” Ellie whispers, and Dina whimpers in reply, head tipped back. “Where do you need me?” And Dina takes Ellie’s hand and guides it between her legs, where Ellie draws circles against her clit. Ellie kisses her breasts and drags her teeth lightly against Dina’s neck and her collarbones until Dina is shaking and whimpering and clenching around nothing.

“Need you inside me,” she whimpers now, and Ellie murmurs to her, steadying one arm around Dina’s waist, and letting Dina position her fingers.

And it’s as if Dina is trying to press the whole front of her body against Ellie’s, as she sinks down onto Ellie’s fingers. Ellie has one hand on the small of her back, and murmurs sweet things, about how beautiful and soft and warm Dina is, and kisses along her shoulders and neck as Dina settles.

Dina rests in the curve of Ellie’s neck for a moment, just breathing, feeling her own pulse around Ellie’s fingers, leaning into Ellie’s mouth as it travels across her chest, up her neck, to her lips.

Dina starts to move slowly with her mouth against Ellie’s, not much faster than the rhythm of her breathing. Their lips brush on every roll of her hips; sometimes Ellie captures Dina’s bottom lip in her mouth, sometimes she just lets them brush together and kisses Dina elsewhere - her neck, her breasts. Dina slowly works towards a more insistent pace, and sighs are soon leaving her mouth every time Ellie’s fingers sink inside her.

“My girl,” Ellie breathes against her neck, feeling almost delirious. “My beautiful wife,” and Dina whimpers and rocks, still taking Ellie’s fingers deep inside her as she moves to a slightly faster rhythm.

Soft little cries are leaving Dina’s mouth now, and Ellie exhales against her lips and drinks down her sounds and whispers more sweet things, interspersed with chaste kisses along Dina’s jaw and against her breasts. Ellie’s free arm rounds Dina’s back, pulling her even closer. Between Dina’s legs, Ellie thumbs her clit softly, and Dina whimpers, a little more insistently now.

“My whole world,” Ellie whispers against Dina’s skin. “You and JJ are my whole world, baby,” and Dina clenches around Ellie’s fingers at this, and another cry leaves her mouth. Dina’s hands are in Ellie’s hair now, and she rises and falls on Ellie’s fingers a little faster, exhaling on every downstroke.

And then Dina leans backwards, pulling Ellie towards her, whimpering - “On my back, El, please” - and Ellie complies and holds Dina as she falls back, helping her settle against the mattress. Dina loops her arms loosely around Ellie’s neck. Ellie rolls her hips between Dina’s legs with the rhythm of her thrusts, pride flashing through her as Dina’s cries increase in frequency.

Ellie now has easier access to Dina’s mouth, and she takes it, kissing Dina deeply when she indicates she wants that; kissing her forehead as she murmurs soft things into her skin - 

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, baby,” Ellie murmurs, and her voice hitches. “Let me make you feel good, let me make you come -”

“I love you,” Dina gasps. “I love you inside me, I’m so close, I need you -”

“I’ll never leave, love, never, I promise...God you’re so wet, baby, I know you’re almost there -”

Dina whimpers, a soft chant leaving her lips - “Ellie, Ellie, Ellie” - and Ellie hovers over her and kisses her and murmurs soothing things - “Yes, baby, yes. Come for me, come for me -”

Dina comes with a sharp intake of breath and a quiet cry, as Ellie whispers love against her neck. And Ellie keeps moving, wrings every lovely aftershock out of Dina until she’s limp and boneless beneath her, as if she could boil away all the aches and pains until Dina is nothing but soft, pliant happiness.

* * *

Later, they snuggle together, legs tangled, half-covered by their rumpled blankets. Ellie falls into a half-sleep, one arm thrown over Dina’s belly, breathing against the curve of Dina’s neck. She mumbles a little and twitches, and Dina pulls her close, wraps her body around her and kisses her forehead. Ellie comes back to consciousness and inhales against Dina’s skin, and plays with Dina’s hair, which is spread out against the pillow. They float along.

At some point, one of them finds the energy to speak.

“Is that the _sun?_ ”

Dina rolls over, away from the lightening sky in the window, and nuzzles into the crook of Ellie’s neck, groaning. “We should get some sleep,” she mumbles. 

Ellie just hums, tracing the line of her shoulder with one finger. Then she tips Dina’s jaw up and presses a soft, chaste kiss to her lips. Dina smiles against her mouth, and Ellie holds her closer and kisses down her neck.

“Baby,” Dina breathes, sighing softly as Ellie moves over her collarbone. She presses soft, deliberate kisses to every purpling bruise she’s left along Dina’s shoulders and on the tops of her breasts. She moves to the scar on Dina’s right shoulder - she nuzzles it and presses a line of gentle kisses along the uneven tissue, and Dina’s heart swells at the tenderness.

Ellie practically lays on top of her now, resting her head just below Dina’s ribcage to look up at her, smiling softly. Dina takes this opportunity to play with her hair, brushing it behind one ear, watching the rising sun catch its deep reds, and some soft grays. 

Ellie’s lips brush Dina’s skin as she speaks. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

Dina inhales deeply, and Ellie’s body rises and falls with her breathing. She traces Ellie’s upper back with her fingertips - scars from wounds she helped sew up, and countless others where she wasn’t there. It aches in her, the knowledge that so many things in this world have tried to harm Ellie, have tried to take Ellie from her, including Ellie herself. And still she’s here, wrapped in Dina’s arms, heart beating next to hers, and that ache eases a little.

Dina’s fingertips trace Ellie’s jaw and pull her back up, and Ellie’s arms round her body. Dina can feel the heat of the rising sun a little stronger, and she tips her head back slightly so she can look Ellie in the eyes. Dina kisses her lightly, and then pulls away.

“Nothing at all,” she replies, voice soft. She watches a worry line form between Ellie’s brows, feels Ellie’s fingers ghost over the shell of her ear.

“I don’t understand.”

Dina catches her hand and presses her lips to Ellie’s knuckles, exhales against the back of her palm, before reaching up to straighten a lock of hair behind her ear. Ellie leans into her touch, nuzzling the inside of her hand, and Dina smiles softly.

“It means I chose you.” She pulls Ellie closer, so that their legs tangle together, and Ellie’s lips ghost over the hollow of her throat. “And I would do it all over again.”

Ellie’s arms firm around her for a moment, pulling Dina closer, stroking her upper back. Her whisper is warm and sweet against her skin.

“Me too.”

Dina buries her nose in Ellie’s hair and breathes deeply, as if she can take in Ellie’s scent of rain and pine and woodsmoke and make it part of herself. She drifts off to the rhythm of Ellie’s breathing, to the soft birdsong from outside their window as the world wakes up, and to the sweet, persistent beat of Ellie’s heart against her chest, on and on and on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had some things in mind for the two songs that Ellie plays in this chapter - "Like Real People Do" (Hozier) for the first one, and "Big Black Car" (Gregory Alan Isakov) for the second one - but feel free to replace those with whatever vibes with you.


End file.
